Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Marc Dion: Going Home (Creators Syndicate)
When I have trouble falling asleep because the day has been hard, I lie on my back, close my eyes and go home. I go back to a rented two-story white house in a small New England manufacturing city in 1964 and my parents and my grandmother and a great-hearted boxer dog named Joey.
Chuck Norris: A Nod to Japanese Diet and a Deep Bow to Japanese Green Tea (Creators Syndicate)
As a nation, Japan has the longest-living people in the world. They are also among the healthiest. Though there is no definitive answer for this longevity, the fact that their national diet contains a number of disease-fighting foods consumed daily is an obvious factor.
Bim Adewunmi: "Crush of the week: Meryl Streep" (Guardian)
We should call her Saint Meryl, really. She's almost holy.
Catherine Bennett: "Modern tribes: the internet cafe squatter" (Guardian)
'If cafes don't want people coming in and using their Wi-Fi, they shouldn't have free Wi-Fi, am I right? Plus, technically, it isn't free - I bought a coffee yesterday.'
Experience: I am Big Bird (Guardian)
'I got the job in 1969. I had no idea I'd still be doing it more than 45 years later.'
Marie Calvert: "Experience: I've slept with 3,000 men" (Guardian)
'I am actually married. But neither of us puts sex on a pedestal. We see it for what it is: separate from love.'
Anonymous: "What I'm really thinking: the member of Mensa" (Guardian)
'Relationships were a problem, as there aren't many men who like smart women. I tried socialising in Mensa. I don't any more. Being intelligent doesn't make you empathic or honest.'
Oliver Burkeman: Life, like the election, is about trade-offs. You can't have, or do, it all (Guardian)
'Knowing you can't possibly have everything, or get everything done, spares you the anxiety of trying to figure out how you could.'
David Bruce's Amazon Author Page
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David Bruce has over 80 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
, wrote:
answered:
has returned to semi-retired status.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Reminder from DJ Useo
CRUMPLSTOCK
Hey All-
The CRUMPLSTOCK 3 day online music festival is going GREAT! Links are easily found here
Please come & hear my set tonight!
DJ Useo
See you there!
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
Rained a bit - not enough to do much, but it was a nice change.
Record Low Water Level
Lake Mead
Nevada's Lake Mead, the largest capacity reservoir in the United States, is on track to drop to its lowest water level in recorded history on Sunday as its source, the Colorado River, suffers from 14 years of severe drought, experts said on Friday.
The 79-year-old reservoir, formed by the building of the Hoover Dam outside Las Vegas, was expected to dip below 1,080 feet on Sunday, lower than a previous record of 1,080.19 feet last August, according to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.
Predictions show that on May 31, the reservoir will have dipped again to 1,075 feet, well below its record high levels of around 1,206 feet in the 1980s, according to Bureau of Reclamation data.
Over the past 14 years, snowfall has dropped in the Rocky Mountains, leading to a drop in snow pack runoff that feeds the river, according to Bureau of Reclamation statistics. In 2013, runoff was at 47 percent of normal.
Lake Mead
Removing Aspartame
Diet Pepsi
As much as soda drinkers might get the occasional stink eye from their health-conscious peers, that's nothing compared to the abject horror diet-soda consumers potentially face from their friends. To some, sipping a diet cola is the equivalent of drinking poison.
PepsiCo thinks that's all because of negative perceptions surrounding aspartame, the artificial sweetener used to make Diet Pepsi taste sweet without all of the added calories of sugar or corn syrup.
"Aspartame is the number one reason consumers are dropping diet soda," said Seth Kaufman, a vice president at Pepsi, in a release on Friday. So what's a soda company to do? PepsiCo is dropping the ingredient for a combination of sucralose-better known by its brand name, Splenda-and acesulfame potassium, according to The Associated Press.
Sales for Diet Pepsi have dropped dramatically in the past two years, with a decline of about 35 percent, while Diet Coke sales have dropped about 15 percent. And while soda sales overall have dropped in the past decade, consumer concerns over unnatural ingredients have caused many to steer clear of the calorie-free options.
Diet Pepsi
Swedish Cops
Toast of New York
Four burly Swedish police officers were hailed as heroes and set hearts aflutter with their model-like looks after they put aside their New York vacation to subdue a bloody fight.
The Swedes were taking the subway to a Broadway performance of "Les Miserables" on Thursday night when the train operator suddenly put a frantic call out for any police officers on the train.
"One of the guys was on top of the other guy, so we separated them," the 25-year-old Markus Asberg told the New York Post.
Amateur video footage released online shows the four officers crouched over the two men on the floor of the subway car, telling them to keep calm and checking that they are alright.
"We came here for vacation," Asberg told the Post. "We're no heroes, just tourists."
Swedish Cops
Won't Close After All
'The Fantasticks'
The off-Broadway phenomenon "The Fantasticks" won't be closing next month after all - thanks to a pair of fantastic fans.
Two donors have stepped up and pledged to keep the stalwart, low-tech show open, producer Catherine Russell said Saturday. Plans had been made for the show to close after some 20,000 performances on May 3, the 55th anniversary of the show's opening in 1960.
"Neither donor knows the other and both want to remain anonymous," Russell wrote in an email. "They both just have loved the show for many years and were heartbroken and furious at me for deciding to close it without discussing it with them."
For nearly 42 years the show chugged along at the 153-seat Sullivan Street Playhouse in Greenwich Village, finally closing in 2002 after 17,162 performances - a victim both of a destroyed downtown after 9-11 and a new post-terrorism, edgy mood. It opened four years later at The Snapple Theater Center, an off-Broadway complex in the heart of Times Square.
'The Fantasticks'
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Brian Williams
Months after Brian Williams admitted to falsely claiming he was onboard a helicopter hit by rocket fire in Iraq, three NBC executives reportedly gathered in a Rockefeller Center conference room to talk about their embattled anchor.
So far, unnamed sources told the Washington Post and the New York Times, the network's internal probe has identified 11 occasions when Williams apparently bent the truth about his reporting.
NBC decided to suspend the "Nightly News" anchor back in February and launch an investigation into Williams' work after the Iraq admission sparked an onslaught of accusations of embellished reporting. Everything from Williams' Hurricane Katrina coverage and SEAL Team 6 stories to anecdotes about his college years were suddenly subject to scrutiny.
And as NBC News senior investigative producer Richard Esposito and his team of journalists tasked with combing through Williams' record seem to have discovered, several of the revered reporter's stories were, in fact, too good to be true.
Brian Williams
The Casey Kasem Law
Iowa
A year after the children of radio personality Casey Kasem had to seek court action to see their ailing father, a new law in Iowa aims to ensure that adult children can see their sick parents - granting them visitation rights unless the person's guardian goes to court to stop them.
Gov. Terry Branstad signed the bill into law Friday. Under the measure, an adult with a legal guardian - someone who cannot manage their own affairs - would have the right to receive visits from family members and others they have previously expressed interest in seeing. The legal guardian could still control factors like the time and place of the visits.
Previously, Iowa law did not address how to handle such situations, said Sen. Rob Hogg, a Cedar Rapids Democrat who pushed for the bill.
The legislation was backed by Kasem's daughter, Kerri Kasem, who appeared on Iowa talk radio several times advocating for the bill. Kasem, a radio show host herself who lives in Los Angeles, is pushing for similar laws in several other states and said she believes Iowa is the first to enact such a bill.
Lawmakers from both parties worked on the legislation, which won unanimous approval in both chambers. Hogg said he started working on the issue after hearing last year from a constituent who was having difficulty visiting her brother.
Iowa
Bar Honors Censured Former Judge
Montana
A Montana bar association on Friday defended its controversial decision to honor a former judge who was censured for suggesting that a 14-year-old girl was partly to blame for her rape by a teacher whom the judge sentenced to just 31 days.
The board of the Yellowstone Area Bar Association, a private organization of attorneys in the Billings area, said it voted to present retired state District Judge G. Todd Baugh with a lifetime achievement award for his decades of service.
Baugh retired in December, roughly six months after state justices cited him for undermining public confidence in the judiciary by commenting that the teen girl, Cherice Moralez, was "as much in control of the situation" as the ex-teacher, Stacey Rambold, who was convicted of raping her in 2007.
Moralez killed herself before the case could be brought to trial.
State justices also found that Baugh imposed an unlawfully lenient term of incarceration when he sentenced Rambold to 15 years in prison with all but 31 days suspended. The court said Montana law required a sentence of at least four years for a defendant guilty of sexually assaulting a victim under 16.
Montana
Population Sharply Declining
North American Sage-Grouse
The number of breeding males in the greater sage-grouse population of the United States and part of Canada has declined by 56 percent in recent years, in a sign of trouble for the ground-dwelling bird, a study released on Friday showed.
The study from the Pew Charitable Trusts comes as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service prepares to make a decision before the end of September on whether the bird should be protected under the Endangered Species Act.
U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell announced on that a sub-species of the sage-grouse found in California and Nevada did not require protection under the Endangered Species Act. Environmentalists criticized the decision.
The move was a victory for mining, energy and farming companies which fear sage-grouse protections could restrict their livelihoods in the 11 Western states where the bird lives, including Washington state, Colorado and Montana.
North American Sage-Grouse
Giant 'Hats' Rolled Into Place
Easter Island
The distinctive headgear worn by some of the famous Easter Island statues may have been rolled up ramps to reach those high perches, a new study suggests.
A simple analysis of the physics suggests that rolling the headwear - bulky cylindrical shapes that look like Russian fur hats - would have been a relatively easy matter, said study co-author Sean Hixon, an undergraduate student in archaeology and geology at the University of Oregon, who presented his findings here on April 16 at the 80th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archeology.
Since Europeans arrived at the location in the 1700s, people have wondered how the residents of Easter Island, or Rapa Nui, off the coast of Chile, raised their majestic statues. Some scientists have speculated that the statues were walked into place. Others have argued that the native islanders chopped down the island's forests to roll the stone behemoths across the landscape, leading to environmental devastation and the collapse of the Easter Island civilization.
Some of these Easter Island statues, or moai, are topped by large red headgear. About 100 of these "hats," made from red volcanic rock called scoria, have been found, with many strewn along ancient paths on the island.
Easter Island
In Memory
Richard Corliss
Richard Corliss, the longtime film critic for Time magazine, has died after suffering a major stroke last week, the magazine said Friday. He was 71.
In his 35 years as the magazine's film critic, Corliss wrote more than 2,500 reviews and other articles.
His reviews were "authoritative but never intimidating" and his tastes "populist but eclectic," ranging from Chinese kung fu and Disney animation to films by Ingmar Bergman and Werner Herzog.
Early in his career, Corliss dismissed the box office "Star Wars" hit, stating that "the movie's legs will prove as vulnerable as C-3PO's." But he soon embraced the films by Steven Spielberg and George Lucas.
Corliss also was the author of several books "Talking Pictures" in 1974 was a survey of major Hollywood screenwriters. He also wrote a monograph on Stanley Kubrick's Lolita and last year published a book on iconic film mothers titled "Mom in the Movies."
His wife of more than 40 years, Mary Corliss is curator of the Film Stills Archive at New York's Museum of Modern Art.
Richard Corliss
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