Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Marc Dion: Walking to the Border (Creators Syndicate)
America's porous border is right there, down at the end of your front walk.
Mark Hill: "6 Ways Movies Get Space Wrong (by Astronaut Chris Hadfield)" (Cracked)
#6. It Will Kill You in Surprisingly Mundane Ways
Lucy Mangan: from missing files to missing the point entirely - welcome to Cameron land (Guardian)
When setting up the official inquiry into child abuse allegations, why did our great leaders not stop to think that, in a nation that's basically run by four or five families, there might be a connection or two that might scupper the whole plan?
Kathleen Hale: "From prey to predator: how I got justice after sexual assault" (Guardian)
First came the attack, on Kathleen Hale's first day at college. Then came the long, hard road through disbelief and two trials.
Anonymous: "What I'm really thinking: the reluctant dad" (Guardian)
'Previously, existence was about going to the pub, meeting women and working to pay for the above. Now I work to support my partner and child, and it's awful.'
Oliver Burkeman: "This column will change your life: just sit down and think" (Guardian)
'No wonder we don't dwell on what's inside: that would underline the loneliness of existence.'
Terry Smith: Famous writer-professor, now passed away, taught me well (Athens News)
Keyes' widely read 1966 novel, "Flowers for Algernon," was adapted into an Academy Award-winning film, "Charly." Actor Cliff Robertson won an Oscar for his lead role in that 1968 movie. Everybody I knew had read the book or seen the movie, and usually both.
Diana Nelson Jones: Thanks, Daniel Keyes, for putting me in my place (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
I was star-struck. I had to get into his class. I did. And it changed my life.
El divertido abrazo entre Ivo Karlovic y Dudi Sela? (YouTube)
"The proper etiquette after a tennis match is for the two players to greet each other, shake hands, or hug. During the Claro Open Colombia tennis tournament in Bogotá, Colombia, Croatian player Ivo Karlovic, who is 6' 11", defeated Israeli Dudi Sela, who is 5' 9". Sela found the perfect workaround for this situation. The fact that they are dressed just alike was a coincidence." - Neatorama
David Bruce's Amazon Author Page
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David Bruce has approximately 50 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
wrote:
took the day off.
has retired.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Any Ideas?
What Is This Plant?
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
Marine layer never burned off - quite nice.
1 Million Comments
Net Neutrality
U.S. companies, consumer advocates and citizens submitted more than 1 million comments to the Federal Communications Commission, drawing contentious divisions on the issue of net neutrality as the first deadline to comment approached Friday.
The FCC will continue collecting comments, made in response to these first submissions, until Sept. 10 as it weighs how best to regulate the way Internet service providers (ISPs) manage web traffic crossing their networks. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler (D-Comcast) proposed new rules in April after a federal court struck down the FCC's previous version of such rules in January.
The FCC's draft rules propose banning ISPs from blocking users' access to websites or applications but allowing some "commercially reasonable" deals between content providers and ISPs to prioritize delivery of some web traffic.
Though Wheeler has insisted the FCC would carefully guard against abuse of the rules to hurt competition or consumers, the proposal drew ire from public interest groups and large web companies that say it would result in faster download speeds for some content at the expense of other content, which would inevitably be relegated to "slow lanes."
Net Neutrality
NBC Sends Back To Gaza
Ayman Mohyeldin
NBC said Friday it was sending Middle East correspondent Ayman Mohyeldin back to the Gaza strip this weekend after he left the region for unexplained reasons following his eyewitness report on the killing of four Palestinian boys on a beach this week.
The network praised Mohyeldin for his "extraordinary reporting" throughout the conflict in Gaza. NBC said that as with any news team in combat zones, deployments are constantly reassessed.
Mohyeldin's firsthand reports on the deaths of the four boys Wednesday were aired on the "Today" show and MSNBC, and he tweeted that he had played soccer with some of the victims shortly before the attack. But then his social media account went quiet, and when NBC's "Nightly News" reported on the deaths Wednesday, correspondent Richard Engel did the story and Mohyeldin was nowhere to be seen.
His absence was immediately noticed in the news world. When NBC refused to discuss the situation, there was much online speculation that the network had problems with his reporting. Mohyeldin, who has worked extensively in the Middle East and reported for Al Jazeera English before joining NBC in 2011, has received some criticism of his reporting from pro-Israeli groups.
In announcing his return to Gaza on Friday, NBC still would not discuss Mohyeldin's temporary absence. But the network made a point to compliment him.
Ayman Mohyeldin
Alan Moore Calls For Boycott
'Hercules'
Alan Moore would rather that you didn&rsquot go and see the upcoming Hercules, starring Dwayne Johnson. It's not that he thinks it's a bad movie; he's more concerned about the movie's relationship with its source material.
The Paramount movie, directed by Brett Ratner, is an adaptation of the Radical Comics series Hercules: The Thracian Wars, written by Steve Moore (no relation to Alan) with art by Admira Wijaya. With the movie due for release next week, Alan Moore has spoken about the poor treatment he feels Steve Moore, who died earlier this year, suffered at the hands of Radical.
Talking to the website BleedingCool.com, Moore said that Steve Moore had quite a few problems with Radical Comics in producing the comic book and there were compromises that he had been assured that he would not have to make which he had, in fact, been told to make, including the fact that Steve wouldn't be getting any money from [the movie, with] the only consolation [being] that his name wouldn't be going on it.
Upon Steve Moore's death, however, that apparently changed. In the interview, Alan Moore alleged that following the his death in March, Steve Moore's name started appearing in publicity materials for the movie, which he suggests was an attempt to take advantage of any posthumous interest in the writer's work. Now I have to look at my thesaurus and see if there are any words other than vile which I could use for that, Moore told the website, but even in the low estimation in which I hold the greater part of the comic industry, that is a new low.
The writer of Watchmen and V For Vendetta -- famously outspoken for his views on creators rights in the comics industry, who famously took his own name off the movie adaptation of his own V For Vendetta and From Hell (and the Marvel reprints of his Miracleman work) after conflicts with the publishers involved called for fans of Steve Moore's work to boycott the movie.
'Hercules'
The Saga Continues
Casey Kasem
A judge has granted Casey Kasem's daughter a temporary restraining order preventing the famous radio host's wife from cremating his remains, but it's unclear where those remains are or whether they've already been disposed of.
A lawyer for Kasem's daughter Kerri Kasem said Friday that when he went to give a Tacoma funeral home a copy of the restraining order, he was informed it no longer had the remains.
"They said they could not disclose where he had gone or where he would end up," said the lawyer, Scott Winship.
Kasem's wife of the past 34 years, Jean Kasem, filled out a death certificate dated July 15 listing an address in Jerusalem, Israel, according to a copy filed in Pierce County Superior Court. The document listed "removal from state" as the intended means of disposing the remains, the Urgel Bourgie funeral home in Montreal as the place of disposition, and July 14 as the date of disposition.
Casey Kasem
Pouncing On Time Warner While Rivals Are Distracted
Rupert
Rupert Murdoch looks to have been canny in his $80 billion takeover approach to Time Warner Inc, cornering the media giant at a time when potential "white knight" bidders are busy absorbing their own large deals.
The absence of potential counter-bidders leaves Time Warner's investors with a dilemma. They can either engage with Murdoch's Twenty-First Century Fox Inc to negotiate a higher price, or play for time and wait until there are more potential buyers available.
Time Warner, owner of many highly-prized assets from HBO to Warner Bros, has rejected Fox's initial cash-and-stock proposal of $85 per share. An eventual deal would transform the U.S. media landscape and cement Murdoch's status as the most powerful magnate in U.S. media and entertainment.
When Time Warner's board rebuffed the approach it indicated it believes now is the wrong time to sell because the environment isn't conducive to getting the best price, people familiar with Time Warner's thinking said. That is mainly because a range of major media, telecom and technology companies are for various reasons not in a position to make a rival offer.
Rupert
After U.S. Deportation
Honduran Refugees
When 9-year-old Genesis stepped off a plane in Honduras after being deported from the United States, she was excited at the thought of seeing her cousins. For her mother, Victoria Cordova, the homecoming was terrifying: she fears being killed if she does not repay money she owes the wife of a local gang leader.
Cordova had used the money to pay a smuggler to get her and Genesis to the United States. But after a grueling 2,500 km (1,600 mile) overland trek, the pair were caught entering Texas in June, sent to a detention center and then flown home this week as part of a U.S. effort to speed up the expulsion of thousands of illegal migrants, many of them children.
Their story is emblematic of a wider problem that has been little reported: threats, debts and despair often lie in wait for migrants deported back to violence-racked Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala.
Home for Cordova and her daughter is the "21st of February", a notoriously violent colonia, which clings to the hills around the Honduran capital.
Honduran Refugees
Bans 13 Americans
Russia
Russia has placed a U.S. lawmaker and 12 other people connected with the Guantanamo Bay detention camp and the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq on its list of those banned from entering the country.
In a statement Saturday, Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said congressman Jim Moran, a Democrat from Virginia, was banned in response to the July 2 U.S. ban on Russian parliament member Adam Delimkhanov. He said Moran had been repeatedly accused of financial misdeeds but didn't elaborate.
The other 12, including Guantanamo commander Rear Adm. Richard Butler and Lynndie England, a former soldier convicted of abusing prisoners in Abu Ghraib, were banned in response to the United States' adding 12 names in May to the so-called Magnitsky List of Russians sanctioned for human rights abuses.
Retired Brig. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, who commanded U.S. ground forces in Iraq in 2003-2004, retired Col. Janis Karpinsky whose command included the Abu Ghraib prison, and Gladys Kessler, a federal judge who rejected a Guantanamo inmate's complaint of being force-fed while on hunger strike, were also included.
Russia
Delay USS Saratoga Departure
Peregrine Falcons
The Navy is ready to say goodbye to the USS Saratoga, but a family of peregrine falcons is not.
The falcons are nesting on board the decommissioned aircraft carrier in Newport, Rhode Island. The Navy has delayed the Saratoga's final trip to Texas, where it will be dismantled, until the fledglings are ready to leave.
Naval Station Newport contacted the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service after the nest was discovered in the spring. Their experts said the falcons should be done rearing their offspring by mid-August, and recommended waiting until then to move the ship.
The peregrine falcon is a protected species under the federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act. Moving the ship while the falcons are nesting could violate the act.
Peregrine Falcons
Forming In Ocean Garbage Patch
Plastic 'Trash Islands'
After returning from the Transpacific Yacht Race - an annual sailboat race from Los Angeles to Honolulu - in 1997, Capt. Charles Moore was guiding his boat through the doldrums when he noticed some plastic debris floating in the water.
Though it didn't seem like an overwhelming amount of trash, he recorded log entries every hour, noting the bits of debris in the water. Toothbrushes. Bottle caps. Eel traps. Floating nets. Soap bottles. On and on it went.
Given that he was in the Pacific Ocean, halfway between California and Hawaii, with nothing nearby, it was odd to find such a long stretch of trash, Moore said.
When he reached solid land, Moore told scientists about what he found, then returned two years later to assess the extent of the garbage patch using more scientific sampling methods.
And thus began the story of the great Pacific garbage patch, a swath of plastic debris, chemical sludge and other trash the size of Texas that is trapped in a vortex between ocean currents.
Plastic 'Trash Islands'
Ancient Christian Population Flees
Mosul
The ancient Christian community of the northern Iraqi city of Mosul had all but fled by Saturday, ending a presence stretching back nearly two millennia after radical Islamists set them a midday deadline to submit to Islamic rule or leave.
The ultimatum by the Islamic State drove out the few hundred Christians who had stayed on when the group's hardline Sunni Muslim fighters overran Mosul a month ago, threatening Christians and the diverse city's other religious communities.
This week the Islamic State gave any remaining Christians a final choice to make by Saturday noon: convert to Islam, pay a religious tax, or face the sword.
The overlapping of Muslim and Christian faiths in modern day Mosul is evident by the fact that the tomb of the Biblical and Koranic prophet Jonah is housed in a mosque in the city.
That mosque is at risk of destruction along with others in Mosul considered heretical by the Sunni, ultra-conservative Islamic State, which rejects other branches of Islam such as Shi'ism and condemns the veneration of tombs.
Mosul
Town Opens Filling Station
Somerset, Kentucky
Somerset's city hall ventured into the retail gas business Saturday, opening a municipal-run filling station that supporters call a benefit for motorists and critics denounce as a taxpayer-supported swipe at the free market.
The Somerset Fuel Center opened to the public selling regular unleaded gas for $3.36 a gallon, a bit lower than some nearby competitors. In the first three hours, about 75 customers fueled up at the no-frills stations, where there are no snacks, no repairs and only regular unleaded gas.
The mayor says the station was created in response to years of grumbling by townspeople about stubbornly high gas prices in Somerset, a city of about 11,000 near Lake Cumberland, a popular fishing and boating haven.
Mayor Eddie Girdler, however, is standing firm behind the idea of the city-run station. The canopied station on the outskirts of this southern Kentucky town was converted from use by government vehicles into one that can also cater to anyone looking to fill their tanks.
Girdler, a Republican in his second term, said the city isn't looking to put anyone out of business.
Somerset, Kentucky
In Memory
Lionel Ferbos
Centenarian jazz musician Lionel Ferbos died Saturday at his home in New Orleans, according to a family friend. He was 103.
Ferbos performed all over New Orleans and its suburbs for decades. His ability to read music made him an in-demand musician for gigs that took him to parks, schools, churches, dance halls and even prisons. He also performed at his 102nd birthday party and at every New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival until this past year.
Ferbos was believed to be the oldest working jazz musician, performing regularly until last year. His death Saturday came just days after he turned 103 on July 17.
Ferbos recently became too weak to hold up his trumpet, according to his granddaughter, Lori Schexnayder. She said family members would occasionally hold the trumpet to his mouth so that he could blow into it.
Early in his career, Ferbos performed with New Orleans society jazz bands at well-known venues around town such as the Pythian Roof Garden, San Jacinto Hall and the Pelican Club. The Pelican was among a string of clubs along Rampart Street - the main strip that in the 1920s and '30s was the epicenter of the city's bustling black entertainment district.
Lionel Ferbos
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