Recommended Reading
from Bruce
STEVEN GREENHOUSE: Growth of Unpaid Internships May Be Illegal, Officials Say (nytimes.com)
At Little Airplane, a Manhattan children's film company, an N.Y.U. student who hoped to work in animation during her unpaid internship said she was instead assigned to the facilities department and ordered to wipe the door handles each day to minimize the spread of swine flu.
Peter Conn: We Need to Acknowledge the Realities of Employment in the Humanities (chronicle.com)
Predictions are always perilous. Many of us recall the hearty enthusiasm of the Bowen report of 1989, which assured prospective graduate students that they would find "a substantial excess demand for faculty in the arts and sciences" when they earned their degrees in the mid-1990s. Of course, they did not.
Jack Dolan: State universities tap student fees for unintended projects (latimes.com)
While California universities have faced round after round of crippling budget cuts and protests against increased fees have flared on campuses, administrators have tapped funds meant for classrooms and students to cover some extraordinary costs: losses on ill-timed real estate deals, loans to high-ranking officials and an ambitious construction project.
Les Leopold: Why Are 25 Hedge Fund Managers Worth 658,000 Teachers? (huffingtonpost.com)
While hedge fund managers are living large, teachers everywhere are getting the axe. Our economic system isn't rewarding real value.
Richard Roeper: Just doing their jobs, or just being nosey? (suntimes.com)
Just as quickly as we saw stories of employers rejecting applicants because of damning photos or comments or info on the candidates' Facebook pages, we saw stories about job-seekers changing their online identities to avoid such detection.
Audrey Williams June: Some Papers Are Uploaded to Bangalore to Be Graded (chronicle.com)
Lori Whisenant knows that one way to improve the writing skills of undergraduates is to make them write more. But as each student in her course in business law and ethics at the University of Houston began to crank out-often awkwardly-nearly 5,000 words a semester, it became clear to her that what would really help them was consistent, detailed feedback.
Daniel Gross: The Secret Life of Juan Valdez (slate.com)
How Colombia's most famous coffee picker is challenging Starbucks.
SIMON MACKIE: 10 Simple Google Search Tricks (nytimes.com)
I'm always amazed that more people don't know the little tricks you can use to get more out of a simple Google search. Here are 10 of my favorites.
GAIL COLLINS: A Confederacy of Dunces (nytimes.com)
It's been a tough time lately for those of us who take social studies seriously. Just look at what's going on in Virginia and Texas and elsewhere.
Tim Wu: The Apple Two (slate.com)
The iPad is Steve Jobs' final victory over the company's co-founder Steve Wozniak.
Hadley Freeman: "Christianity: it's time to restore its image" (guardian.co.uk)
Christianity has been having a harsh time of it recently. Which is why it needs to follow this failsafe comeback plan.
Meghan Daum: Another side of the Hollywood sign (latimes.com)
I once went to the open house of a property that was advertised as having views of the Hollywood sign. It was within reasonable proximity to Hollywood,... so I had no reason to doubt this claim. When I arrived, however, I caught no glimpse of the landmark. That is, until I walked into a bedroom and saw, next to a lava lamp and an inflatable plastic palm tree, a framed poster of the Hollywood sign.
Tom Petruno: Why hating Wall Street can hurt you (latimes.com)
There are many good reasons for average Americans to stay out of the stock market. There also is one really bad reason, and unfortunately it's one I hear too often from individual investors.
Scott Burns: Building Index Fund Portfolios on Different Platforms (assetbuilder.com)
The basic idea for Couch Potato investing is simple. Actually doing it, alas, isn't as simple as we'd like it to be.
The Weekly Poll
New Question
The 'Banning the Burka' Edition...
Belgium may be the first European country to ban the full-covering Islamic veils from being worn in public... The Belgian parliament's home affairs unanimously backed a proposal to ban the so-called burka and niqab, two forms of the Muslim veil covering the entire body and face. If the law is enacted, women who wear this in public would be fined 15-25 euros and may face a jail sentence of up to seven days.
EUobserver / Belgium moves towards banning the burka
Would you support or oppose such a ban here in the US? (and why?)
A.) Support ______
B.) Oppose ______
C.) WTF? I gots more important things to worry about, dagnabbit! _______
Send your response to
replied:
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Link from RJ
Dalek Egg
Hi there
A possible link for you perhaps. Do your readers know the TV show Doctor Who?
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Overcast til noon.
Colbert and Tyson Speak Out
Robots or Humans?
The controversy over canning NASA's Constellation program to send astronauts back to the moon in 2020 for investment in future robotic exploration came to The Colbert Report on Comedy Central last night.
In a funny, yet substantive interview, comedian host Stephen Colbert and frequent guest Neil deGrasse Tyson lamented NASA hitching rides on Russian rockets to the International Space Station after the space shuttle retires this September. The spirited conversation also delved into the inspirational value of manned spaceflight over the launching of probes.
"You know I am a huge fan of space exploration," Colbert told his audience. "No one wants to grow up and hear a robot landed and say 'This is one small step for bleep-blorp.'"
Tyson, an astrophysicist and director of New York City's Hayden Planetarium, agreed with his interviewer in saying that "the manned program is a force of nature on the educational pipeline of America. It is the force that excites people to want to become scientists in the first place."
Robots or Humans?
NC Prosecutor Wants His 15 Minutes
Willie Nelson's Band
A North Carolina prosecutor says he still plans to prosecute six members of guitarist and singer Willie Nelson's band on drug and alcohol charges.
Duplin County District Attorney Dewey Hudson said at a press conference Friday that substances seized from the band's bus in January are being tested at the state crime lab in Raleigh. Nelson was not on the bus at the time.
Hudson has faced criticism for pursuing the case, but says he has to show that famous people are not above the law.
The six members of Nelson's band were charged with possession of either marijuana or untaxed liquor before a concert that Nelson canceled because his hand hurt too badly to play.
Willie Nelson's Band
Find Reality TV Hard Work
Playboy Photographers
They thought it would be all fun and glamour, but when 10 photographers recently gathered for a new reality TV show, they learned there was more to taking pictures of naked women than a good camera lens.
"Playboy Shootout," which premiered this past Saturday on cable television's subscriber-only Playboy Channel puts the photographers together in tandem with 10 models and each group -- shooters and models -- compete to have their work featured in the legendary men's magazine founded by Hugh Hefner.
While perhaps many a young man has dreamed of shooting a nude centerfold for Playboy, only few ever make the grade.
Stephen Wayda, a longtime Playboy photographer and judge on "Shootout," said he tried unsuccessfully for years before finally making it into the magazine's pages and onto a stellar career as a celebrity photographer.
Playboy Photographers
Worst In Years
Pollen
From Florida to Texas to Colorado, 2010 is shaping up to be a monster of an allergy season. The words "pollen" and "allergy" are among the top 10 trending topics on Twitter in several U.S. cities. Everywhere, it seems, is covered in a fine yellow dust that irritates our lives. Experts say it's the worst they've seen in years in many areas.
"It's wicked bad this year," said Dr. Mona Mangat, an allergy specialist in St. Petersburg, Fla., who can't recall a worse year in the six she's worked there. "We're just overwhelmed with patients right now. We're double- and triple-booked with new patients, trying to work people in because we know how much people are suffering."
Angel Waldron, a spokeswoman for the Washington, D.C.-based Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America, said that allergy seasons have been getting longer over the years, with six to eight weeks of suffering expected this year in some areas.
Waldron's group compiles a list each year of most challenging places to live for allergy and asthma sufferers. Topping the list: Knoxville, Tenn., followed by Louisville, Ky.; Chattanooga, Tenn.; Dayton, Ohio; and Charlotte, N.C.
Pollen
Hollywood Bookkeeping
"Hannah Montana"
Two of the creators of Disney Channel's "Hannah Montana" franchise have sued the network for more than $5 million in profits from the show.
In a lawsuit filed Friday in Los Angeles Superior Court, series co-creators Barry O'Brien and Richard Correll say they've been denied their fair share of the hugely successful Miley Cyrus series.
O'Brien and Correll created the show with Michael Poryes in 2005. They now say they're owed millions in pre-negotiated percentage-based bonuses based on their back-end deals and Writers Guild of America requirements for writers who receive "created by" credits. The duo claim Disney has denied repeated requests for payment and thwarted attempts to audit profits from the show.
Correll, a prolific TV director, also claims he was wrongfully terminated from the show and "blackballed" from future directing gigs by Disney.
"Hannah Montana"
Benny's Boy
Stephen Kiesle
Even in his seminary days in the early 1970s, there were questions about California priest Stephen Kiesle: Colleagues said he had trouble relating to adults, lacked spirituality and didn't seem committed to anything but youth ministry.
Those colleagues, who helped make the case to the Vatican in 1981 seeking to let him leave the priesthood, said they were concerned before Kiesle was ordained, and more so after revelations Kiesle had molested children in his parish.
Still, future Pope Benedict XVI resisted pleas from the diocese to act on the case, according to a 1985 letter in Latin obtained by The Associated Press that bore his signature as then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.
It would take another two years before the Vatican doctrine watchdog office headed by Ratzinger would approve Kiesle's own request to leave the priesthood in 1987.
Kiesle pleaded no contest in 1978 to lewd conduct for tying up and molesting two boys and was sentenced to three years probation. He took a leave of absence from his parish position, and in 1981 returned and asked the Oakland bishop to be laicized, or removed from the priesthood.
Stephen Kiesle
Another Day, Another Rapist
Juan Jose Santana
A Catholic priest who fled home to Uruguay and was defrocked after a nun accused him of raping three children in Bolivia has been living with his family for more than a year - with the full knowledge of Uruguayan church officials - despite an Interpol warrant for his arrest.
Juan Jose Santana has been a fugitive from justice since being charged in May 2008 with raping three children ages 12 to 17.
Uruguayan church officials were aware that he had returned home - a priest even went to his house to provide counseling - but he has remained free.
It took Uruguay's La Republica newspaper to revive the case, interviewing Santana in his home in Salto, Uruguay. Asked if allegations that he had abused children are true, the newspaper reported Thursday that Santana said, "It's true. That's all I can say. ... You know something? I'm dead."
Juan Jose Santana
Conservative Family Values
Anthony Hopkins
An Alabama evangelist who terrorized his family while impressing audiences at revivals was convicted Friday of murdering his wife and storing her body in a freezer for years.
People who heard Anthony Hopkins' sermons in rural towns around the South sometimes called him a psychic or even a prophet. Yet a prosecutor told jurors that Anthony Hopkins terrorized his wife and young children, isolated them and used the Bible to manipulate them.
After deliberating for 1 1/2 hours, the jury in Mobile also found 39-year-old Anthony Hopkins guilty of rape, sodomy, incest and sexual abuse of a child between the ages of 12 and 16.
Hopkins was arrested in 2008 while preaching at a revival on charges that he killed 36-year-old Arletha Hopkins. Authorities said they were led to the body of his wife by a teenage relative that Hopkins had abused and impregnated.
Investigators say Hopkins killed his wife in a violent fight in 2004 after she caught him having sex with the teenager. They said he then stuffed the wife's body into a freezer at the Mobile home he shared with her, the couple's six children and two of her children from a previous relationship.
Anthony Hopkins
UK Postal Workers Boycott House
Attack Cat
Britain's postal service says it has suspended deliveries to a woman following repeated attacks by her 19-year-old cat. Royal Mail said Friday that it had halted deliveries because postal workers had already sustained "nasty injuries" at the address in the town of Farsley, near Leeds in northern England.
The woman was identified as a 43-year-old pharmacy worker. Media reports say she found it hard to believe that her cat, named "Tiger," could be behind the attacks.
She told two newspapers the animal spent most of its day sleeping and didn't have the energy to chase postal workers.
Attack Cat
In Memory
Dixie Carter
"Designing Women" actress Dixie Carter, who used her charm and stately beauty in a host of roles on Broadway and television, died Saturday. She was 70.
Publicist Steve Rohr, who represents Carter and her husband, actor Hal Holbrook, said Carter died Saturday morning. He would not disclose where she died or the cause of death.
"This has been a terrible blow to our family," Holbrook said in a written statement. "We would appreciate everyone understanding that this is a private family tragedy."
A native of Tennessee, Carter was most famous for playing quick-witted Southerner Julia Sugarbaker for seven years on "Designing Women," the CBS sitcom that ran from 1986 to 1993.
She was nominated for an Emmy in 2007 for her seven-episode guest stint on the ABC hit "Desperate Housewives."
Carter's other credits include roles on the series "Family Law" and "Diff'rent Strokes."
She had been married to Holbrook since 1984.
Dixie Carter
In Memory
Meinhardt Raabe
Meinhardt Raabe, who played the Munchkin coroner in "The Wizard of Oz" and proclaimed in the movie that the Wicked Witch of the East was "really most sincerely dead," has died. He was 94.
Raabe was one of the 124 Munchkins in the film classic and one of only nine who had speaking parts. He was 22 years old and a show business veteran, earning money for college as a "midget" performer, as they were called then, when the movie was shot in 1938.
Raabe portrayed the diminutive Munchkin official who solemnly pronounces the witch dead after Dorothy's farmhouse lands on her: "As coroner I must aver, I thoroughly examined her, And she's not only merely dead, she's really most sincerely dead."
His costume included a huge hat with a rolled brim, and dyed yak hair was used for his handlebar mustache and long beard.
Raabe was about 3 1/2 feet tall when the movie was made. He eventually grew to about 4 1/2 feet. He toured the country for 30 years in the Oscar Mayer Weinermobile, promoting hot dogs as "Little Oscar, the World's Smallest Chef."
Raabe, born in Watertown, Wis., in 1915, was a member of the Midget City cast at the Chicago World's Fair in 1934. He also performed at other fairs, including the San Diego Exposition in 1935.
"By working at these world's fairs as a midget, I was able to work my way through the university," Raabe said. He earned a bachelor's degree in accounting from the University of Wisconsin and, years later, a master's degree in business administration from Drexel University.
Raabe married Marie Hartline, who worked for a vaudeville show called Rose's Royal Midget Troupe, in 1946. She died in a car crash in 1997.
Raabe said some little people resented the word "midget," but that was the description widely used when he was in show business.
Raabe became a regular visitor to the annual OzFest in Chittenango, N.Y., the birthplace of "Oz" author L. Frank Baum, after reading about it in a magazine in the late 1980s.
"Meinhardt wrote us a letter and said, `You know I'm a Munchkin. I was in this movie. Would you ever be interested in having me come.' Of course, after we stopped screaming ...," organizer Barbara Evans said in 1998.
Meinhardt Raabe
In Memory
Timothy White
Timothy White, the youngest victim and last survivor of a notorious California kidnapping saga whose rescue offered hope to parents of missing children, has died. He was 35.
Timothy "Timmy" White was 5 years old when he was kidnapped by child molester Kenneth Parnell as he walked home from his Ukiah school in 1980. Two weeks later, fellow kidnap victim Steven Stayner fled with the boy and hitchhiked to safety.
The 14-year-old Stayner had been held captive and sexually abused for years by Parnell.
The dramatic kidnapping story was told in a book and in the 1989 television movie, "I Know My First Name is Steven."
White's stepfather, Roger Gitlin, said in an e-mail to family friends that White died April 1 of an apparent pulmonary embolism. He was buried Thursday in the town of Newhall in Los Angeles County, where he had worked as a sheriff's deputy since 2005.
Parnell died at age 76 in 2008 while serving a life term for trying to buy a 4-year-old boy for $500 while living in Berkeley. He spent five years in prison during the 1980s for the abductions of Stayner and White.
White is survived by his wife, Dena, and two young children, as well as his mother, father and sister.
Timothy White
| CURRENT MOON lunar phases |
