Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Marc Dion: Is My Microphone On? (Creators Syndicate)
He was straight outta Brooklyn, Jack Chakrin, who changed his name to Jack Carter a long time before dying, at 93, on the other edge of America.
Ted Rall: Are Millennials the Most Ageist Generation Ever? (Creators Syndicate)
Ever notice how those who complain about being victims are themselves at least as likely to be perpetrators of the same offense? Examples that come to mind for me include the United States and Israel, two countries that portray themselves as targets of terrorism while carrying out wars of aggression whose death tolls far exceed their own losses.
Ted Rall: Welcome to the Machine, President Sanders (Creators Syndicate)
Rising in the polls, Bernie Sanders is already posing a credible threat to Hillary in the key primary state of New Hampshire. Having gone in one month from left-wing curiosity to serious contender, his confidence is soaring. He has gone from promoting himself as a mere symbolic tool to push Clinton to the left to predicting that he will win the Democratic nomination for president, and ultimately the presidency itself.
Froma Harrop: Too Many People Crowding the Great Sights (Creators Syndicate)
ROME, Italy - On a recent June day, about 24,999 other tourists and I squeezed into the Vatican's Sistine Chapel. Seeing the Vatican and its museums is one of the most visually magnificent experiences on Earth. Clearly, the word has gotten out.
Froma Harrop: Meditate for Success (Creators Syndicate)
We ambitious strivers seeking guidance from fitness pros, decluttering experts and TED talks often find the day divided in two unequal parts. Three-quarters goes to overworking. The remaining quarter is for countering the ill effects of overworking. We do the latter not necessarily to nurture our souls but to boost performance during the working hours.
Experience: I am Dancing Man (Guardian)
'It felt crazy that something so harmful and personal could turn so quickly into something positive. I realised we could take a stance against this kind of bullying.'
Alison Flood: Why are readers' favourite quotes from Grey so very unsexy? (Guardian)
Inspirational business quotes, Native American proverbs... Amazon.com has revealed which passages of Grey readers have highlighted on their Kindles, and they're not exactly racy.
Deborah Orr: We all have to face up to death - but many of us are not very good at it (Guardian)
From false rumours of the Queen's demise to grief for Charles Kennedy and Sheryl Sandberg's thoughts on bereavement, the range of attitudes we have to death and mortality is vast - and some are surely healthier than others.
Lucy Mangan: A love spell for $400? No wonder witches are cursing Etsy's ban on magick (Guardian)
Sorcery aficionados are incandescent that the handmade-goods website has banned the selling of hexes, spells and charms. It might just have something to do with the fact that witchcraft is a money spinner.
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David Bruce has over 80 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
"Doug's Most Shared Facebook Post" Today
, wrote:
took the day off.
has returned to semi-retired status.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Readaer Comment
Fat Tony
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
BadtotheboneBob
Fishing with Loons...
Loon couple at 9:30am today on Grousehaven Lake, Rifle River Recreation Area, MI about 25 yards from my boat. They gave us a loud 'shouting at', Loon-style from time to time, for being in their part of the lake... They did hang around quite awhile, though, giving us quite a show... Awesome...
The Loons departed, but Small Mouth Bass appeared... a nice 17" one that gave me one of their usual pugnacious fights. Quite fun on lightweight tackle...
My kind o' 4th of July fireworks!
BttbBob
Thanks, B2tbBob!
from Marc Perkel
Patriot Act
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny and seasonal.
Visits New Horizons Team
Styx
As NASA's New Horizons spacecraft sails away to Pluto, one bunch of musicians is particularly intrigued by its journey: Styx, the rock band that shares a name with Pluto's smallest moon.
Members of the iconic rock group recently met with the space probe's NASA team at the mission's headquarters at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Maryland. There, the rockers glimpsed the newest photos of Pluto and its five known moons.
All of Pluto's moons rock, of course, but perhaps the most hardcore is Styx, which was spotted by the Hubble Space Telescope in 2012. Styx is about 6 to 15 miles (10 to 24 kilometers) wide, according to one NASA estimate. Recent scientific studies have shown that Pluto's four smaller moons are quite the group of renegades: They tumble chaotically as they orbit Pluto and Charon. [Pluto Quiz: How Well Do You Know the Dwarf Planet?
Styx ambassadors Tommy Shaw (vocals and guitar), Lawrence Gowan (vocals and keyboard) and Todd Sucherman (drums) toured APL and New Horizons' mission control center during their visit. The band members also posed for photos with the mission team, according to a statement from NASA.
Styx
Loses Radio Frequencies
Yellowstone
Researchers at Yellowstone National Park have lost their license for a set of radio frequencies used to track more than 100 radio-collared wolves and elk.
Yellowstone biologist Doug Smith said new licensee NorthWestern Energy is letting researchers share the frequencies, meaning the park can avoid more than $450,000 in estimated costs to restart the program.
Restarting the program would have required researchers to capture the wolves and elk already wearing collars and replace the devices with ones that operate on a different frequency.
The frequency license used by the park expired several years ago. It had been under the name of Ed Bangs, who led the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service effort to reintroduce wolves to the park in the 1990s. When Bangs retired in 2011, the license was never renewed, park officials said.
Park service emails obtained by the group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) show officials were concerned the loss of monitoring data would jeopardize years of science on wolves and the elk herds they hunt.
Yellowstone
July 31 Deadline
2015 National Sitcom Writing Contest
A television comedy veteran who lives in Minnesota is giving aspiring writers a chance to break into the business.
Bo Kaprall is sponsoring the 2015 National Sitcom Writing Contest. The competition features two categories - scripts for an original pilot and scripts for existing shows.
There is a $250 cash prize for the best script in each category, plus a $500 award for best overall script.
Kaprall, who lives in Wayzata, has written for "Saturday Night Live," ''Laverne & Shirley" and "Welcome Back, Kotter." He also is creator and executive producer of "Outlaw Country," a new TV series that debuted on WGN America in February.
The deadline has been extended to July 31. Registrations can be made at www.sitcomcontest.com.
2015 National Sitcom Writing Contest
Cherry Pit Spitters
Michigan
A 15-year-old Michigan girl said there was nothing special about the way she spit a cherry pit Saturday.
"I just took a deep breath and pushed hard," said Megan Ankrapp of Buchanan, whose pit landed at 49 feet, 1/4 inch - longest of the day at the 42nd annual contest in southwestern Michigan.
Megan won the women's category but didn't participate in the overall championship round because her earlier spits were too short to qualify.
The championship spit-off was claimed by Kevin Bartz of Niles with a winning distance of 48 feet, 8 inches. He was followed by 2014 champ Brian Krause at 48 feet.
"Here I was all excited to finally beat the Krause family and I look up and say, 'Wait a minute. One of the girls beat me,'" said Bartz, 48. "It's not quite as exciting."
Michigan
Pope Visit
Ecuador
Thirty years ago, Gustavo Negrete took his wooden cross and joined other indigenous Ecuadorans to greet Pope John Paul II. But he has no interest in seeing Pope Francis on Sunday.
Like a growing number of indigenous people in Latin America, Negrete has turned his back on the Roman Catholic faith that was violently forced upon their ancestors by Spanish conquistadors.
Ecuador will be the first stop in the first Latin American pope's eight-day trip to the region, which will include visits to Bolivia and Paraguay.
When John Paul visited Ecuador in 1985, 94 percent of the population identified as Catholic. Today, 80 percent of the country's 16 million people are Catholic. Seven percent of Ecuadorans are indigenous people.
Ecuador
Gold Stockpile
Texass
Forget Fort Knox or the Federal Reserve. Texas has decided to start keeping its gold holdings within in its own borders. But what makes sense politically in such a sovereignty-loving place is creating a logistical conundrum.
Texas is the only state that owns an actual stockpile of gold, according to public sector and financial industry experts - not just gold futures or investment positions, but approximately 5,600 gold bars worth around $650 million. The holdings, stored at a New York bank, for some harken back to century-old fears about the security of currency not backed by shiny bullion.
The Legislature's decision this summer to bring its gold cache home was hailed by many conservatives, and even some on the far left, who are suspicious of national government.
But for the Texas comptroller's office, which has to implement the policy, the catch is that the new Texas Bullion Depository exists in name but not reality.
The law doesn't say where the depository would be or how it should be built or secured. No funding was provided for those purposes or for leasing space elsewhere. Further complicating matters is a provision allowing ordinary people to check their own gold or silver bullion into the facility.
Texass
Estate In Legal Fight
Eliot Ness
A legal fight is brewing in Florida between the estate of "Untouchables" Prohibition agent Eliot Ness and an Ohio company over some long-undiscovered stock that apparently belonged to Ness and may be worth more than $1 million.
Ness, the famed Prohibition agent who led the "Untouchables" in their crusade against Chicago gangster Al Capone and his mob accomplices, later was the top executive at bank services company Diebold Inc.
A 50-share Diebold stock certificate, along with Ness' old federal badges and credentials, languished for years in a box in the South Florida apartment of Winnie Higgins Knorr, Ness' longtime personal secretary. When Knorr died several years ago in Fort Lauderdale, her belongings - including the Diebold stock - passed on to an acquaintance, Debra Hole.
Ness was Diebold's chief executive officer from 1944 to 1951, after his crime-fighting successes in Chicago and a later stint as Cleveland's safety director. His 1929-31 service as a Prohibition agent in Chicago was the subject of a popular book and later a television show with Robert Stack as Ness, followed by the 1987 film with Kevin Costner in the agent's role and Robert De Niro as Capone.
Ness, who also unsuccessfully ran for mayor of Cleveland, died of a heart attack in Coudersport, Pennsylvania in 1957 at age 54. He left little in his estate to his third wife, Elisabeth, according to Bradley. No mention was ever made of the Diebold stock certificate and the company never reached out, he said.
Eliot Ness
Glace Bay Armoury
Guglielmo Marconi
The Glace Bay Armoury was renamed in honour of wireless pioneer Guglielmo Marconi on Friday.
The 60-year-old Armoury is used to train combat-capable signalers, a fitting salute since Marconi built his experimental wireless station in Glace Bay at the turn of the 20th century.
In 1902, Marconi made history by transmitting the first wireless message from Table Head - a neighbourhood in Glace Bay - to England.
The Armoury will now be known as the Dr. Guglielmo Marconi Armoury.
Guglielmo Marconi
King Crowned
Tonga
Tupou VI was formally crowned King of Tonga on Saturday before thousands of people including heads of state and dignitaries from around the world, capping a week steeped in traditional rites.
Because it is taboo for Tongans to touch their king's head, a retired Australian minister was flown in to perform the televised crowning.
The new king also becomes the 24th Tu'i Kanokupolu, an ancient Tongan title that pre-dates the monarchy by centuries.
Tonga's monarchy can trace its history back 1,000 years and by the 13th century the nation wielded power and influence over surrounding islands, including Samoa, nearly 900 kilometres (560 miles) to the east.
By 1900 the country had become a British protectorate and acquired its independence in 1970. It remains the only monarchy among South Pacific island nations.
Tonga
In Memory
Diana Douglas Webster
Actress Diana Douglas Webster, mother of Michael Douglas and former wife of Kirk Douglas, died of cancer on Saturday in Woodland Hills, Calif. She was 92.
Born Diana Love Dill on January 22, 1923 in Devonshire, Bermuda, Webster appeared on film, television and stage. She appeared in more than 20 films, including "Planes, Trains and Automobiles" and "It Runs in the Family," in addition to TV roles on "The West Wing" and "Love is a Many Splendored Thing."
Webster met Kirk Douglas when they were both acting students at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York. They married in 1943 and had Kirk, in 1944, followed by the birth of Joel (now a producer) in 1947.
After a divorce from Kirk in 1951, Webster married actor Bill Darrid in 1956 and then Donald A. Webster upon her second husband's death.
Diana Douglas Webster
In Memory
Val Doonican
Irish singer Val Doonican, a regular fixture on British television in the 1960s and 70s with hits like "Walk Tall" and "The Special Years" has died peacefully at the age of 88, his publicist said on Thursday.
Doonican, who grew up in Waterford on the southeast coast of Ireland, was the star of his own show on the BBC from 1965 to 1986, featuring his own performances and those of guest artists.
He had started writing music from an early age and had been touring as part of various groups with limited success until in 1963 he appeared on Britain's main variety TV program of the day, "Sunday Night at the London Palladium".
That one eight-minute spot transformed his fortunes, prompting Doonican to say many times that he had become "an overnight success after 17 years."
His jumpers became his trademark along with the rocking chair from which he often performed and his show launched numerous artists' careers including that of Irish comedian Dave Allen.
Doonican stopped performing in 2009 after over 60 years in showbusiness. He was a keen golfer and watercolour painter. In June 2011 he was recognized by the Mayor of Waterford and bestowed the Freedom of the City of his home town.
He leaves behind his wife Lynn, daughters Sarah and Fiona and two grandchildren.
Val Doonican
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