Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Steve Lopez: West Hollywood's Standup Librarian isn't laughing (LA Times)
Comedian Meredith Myers decided five years ago she wanted to become a librarian. Now it seems the library she devoted so much time to has turned against her.
Henry Rollins: "A Modest Proposal: Global Occupy Music Festivals" (LA Weekly)
I actually watched a little more than half a minute of 'Jersey Shore.' I came to the conclusion that America is probably headed for a large jar of formaldehyde with a lid screwed tightly on top. I want to be wrong about that.
Andrea Coombs: Big profits, zero taxes for large U.S. companies (MarketWatch)
The official federal corporate income tax rate in the U.S. is 35%, but plenty of the nation's largest publicly traded companies are paying no taxes - even getting money back from the government in some cases - in years when they reap big profits, according to a new report.
Connie Schultz: Exposing the Horrors of Surgical Fires (Creators Syndicate)
Nearly five years ago, 20-year-old Lauren Wargo underwent what should have been a routine surgical procedure to remove a mole on her face. She woke up in the recovery room unable to see. Her face was wrapped in gauze. Cool water streamed down her cheeks.
Michele Hanson: Perhaps I should visit St Paul's (Guardian)
Rosemary has been, and Fielding said it reminded him of a time when we had hope.
Brian Palmer: Seriously, I Just Want an Escort (Slate)
Are there any who aren't prostitutes?
Brian Palmer: Drink Cheap Wine (Slate)
I mean, really cheap.
Leslie Ayres: 7 Spelling and Grammar Errors that Make You Look Dumb
Many brilliant people have some communication weak spots. Unfortunately, the reality is that written communication is a big part of business, and how you write reflects on you. Poor spelling and grammar can destroy a professional image in an instant.
The 6 Creepiest Things Discovered by New Homeowners (Cracked)
Approximately 99 percent of haunted house stories begin the same way: The owners move into a house that seems too good to be true. Then there is some foreshadowing via rumors from the neighbors, and finally a gruesome discovery.
But that chain of events isn't just the stuff of movies and campfire stories. Real homeowners have moved into their new digs only to find horrors like ...
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Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny, clear and cold (for these parts).
Growth Industry
Poverty Rate
In September, Americans accustomed to dismal economic news absorbed another rude blow, with reports that a record 46.2 million Americans were living in poverty
On Monday, the U.S. Census Bureau will release a report that uses an alternative--and many say a more accurate--method of measuring poverty. Unlike the conventional method, which is largely unchanged since it was created in 1963, the new one will count tax credits and non-cash benefits--food stamps, for instance--as income. The new calculus will also include medical costs--an enormous fixed expense for some Americans, especially seniors. The Census Bureau's revised method of assessing poverty will also take into account the vastly different costs of living across the country.
How will that change things? According to the New York Times, experts expect the new measure to show that the share of Americans living in poverty is actually slightly higher than the 15.1 percent
But the Census Bureau's new findings may also show that the Great Recession and the halting recovery that has followed didn't have as big an impact as September's report suggested. That study found that since 2006, the number of Americans living in poverty has risen by a whopping 9.7 million. The Times reports that a study published last week using alternate Census data showed a gain of less than half that figure--4.6 million. The more recent study also showed that 39 states experienced no significant growth in poverty during that period. That study was similar in methodology to the government's new analysis out Monday.
In addition, because the new Census report will include medical costs as a fixed expense, it will likely show a higher poverty rate among seniors, though a lower one among children.
Poverty Rate
South Of The Border, Down Mexico Way
Jesse Ventura
Former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura is so upset by the dismissal of his airport security lawsuit that he threatened Friday to apply for dual citizenship so he can spend more time in his beloved Mexico - or run for president of what he labeled "the Fascist States of America."
Ventura, also a former wrestling star, sued the U.S. government in January, alleging that airport scans and pat-downs amounted to unreasonable search and seizure. A district judge threw out his lawsuit Thursday, ruling it should have been filed in a Circuit Court of Appeals.
Ventura has said a titanium hip implanted in him in 2008 sets off metal detectors and that agents previously used hand-held wands to scan his body. He said he was subjected to a body pat-down after an airport metal detector went off last November. Ventura said he hasn't flown since and won't fly commercially again.
Outside the federal courthouse in St. Paul, with a crew from his "Conspiracy Theory" cable TV show filming, Ventura said he hadn't decided whether to continue pressing his lawsuit. He said he wanted to make his case before a jury, not a panel of judges.
The former Navy SEAL said he had lost his patriotism.
"I will never stand for a national anthem again. I will turn my back and I will raise a fist," he said.
Jesse Ventura
German Cleaning Woman Damages Sculpture
"When it Starts Dripping from the Ceiling"
A modern art installation valued at euro800,000 ($1.1 million) was damaged after an overzealous cleaning woman scrubbed away a patina intended to look like a dried rain puddle, a Dortmund official said Friday.
Martin Kippenberger's "When it Starts Dripping from the Ceiling" remains in place at the city's Ostwall museum, despite the damage sustained earlier this month when a cleaner scrubbed away the painted puddle beneath a rubber trough placed under a stacked tower of wooden slats.
The work by Kippenberger, a German-born artist who died in 1997, was on loan to the museum from a private collector, who agreed that it should remain on display despite the incident, said Dortmund city spokeswoman Dagmar Papajewski. In the meantime, insurance adjusters are assessing the damage.
It has not yet been decided whether the patina would be restored, or if the artwork would be left in its newly "cleaned" condition, Papajewski said.
"It will be up to the collector to decide," Papajewski said. "We can't consult Kippenberger about it."
"When it Starts Dripping from the Ceiling"
Devil In The Details
Giotto
Art restorers have discovered the figure of a devil hidden in the clouds of one of the most famous frescos by Giotto in the Basilica of St Francis in Assisi, church officials said on Saturday.
The devil was hidden in the details of clouds at the top of fresco number 20 in the cycle of the scenes in the life and death of St Francis painted by Giotto in the 13th century.
The discovery was made by Italian art historian Chiara Frugone. It shows a profile of a figure with a hooked nose, a sly smile, and dark horns hidden among the clouds in the panel of the scene depicting the death of St Francis.
The figure is difficult to see from the floor of the basilica but emerges clearly in close-up photography.
Giotto
Most No Longer Receive Benefits
Unemployed
The jobs crisis has left so many people out of work for so long that most of America's unemployed are no longer receiving unemployment benefits.
Early last year, 75 percent were receiving checks. The figure is now 48 percent - a shift that points to a growing crisis of long-term unemployment. Nearly one-third of America's 14 million unemployed have had no job for a year or more.
Congress is expected to decide by year's end whether to continue providing emergency unemployment benefits for up to 99 weeks in the hardest-hit states. If the emergency benefits expire, the proportion of the unemployed receiving aid would fall further.
The ranks of the poor would also rise. The Census Bureau says unemployment benefits kept 3.2 million people from slipping into poverty last year. It defines poverty as annual income below $22,314 for a family of four.
Yet for a growing share of the unemployed, a vote in Congress to extend the benefits to 99 weeks is irrelevant. They've had no job for more than 99 weeks. They're no longer eligible for benefits.
Unemployed
Co-Gounder Pleads Guilty
NinjaVideo
A co-founder of pirate website NinjaVideo.net pleaded guilty Thursday to conspiracy to commit copyright infringement.
According to the Motion Picture Association of America, Justin A. Dedemko, 28, of Brooklyn, N.Y., plead guilty in the Alexandria Division of the Eastern District of Virginia.
Dedemko's fellow co-founders, Matthew David Howard Smith and Hana Amal Beshara, pleaded guilty in September to conspiracy and criminal copyright infringement.
The federal indictment said Dedemko was responsible for locating and uploading content to servers used by the NinjaVideo.net website, some of which were located in the Eastern District of Virginia. He was also involved in marketing.
NinjaVideo
Ordered to Pay Attacker
Victim
She was forced to have sex with him, and now she's being forced to pay his bills.
Crystal Harris of Carlsbad, Calif., had been financially supporting her unemployed, abusive husband Shawn Harris for years. But after he sexually assaulted her in 2008, she took him to court.
The jury heard a damning audiotape of the attack secretly recorded by Crystal Harris, and her husband was convicted of forced oral copulation.
Even so, in 2010, the year their divorce became finalized, he requested spousal support. The judge awarded him $1,000 a month, and also asked Crystal Harris to pay $47,000 of her ex-husband's legal fees from the divorce proceedings.
Under normal circumstances, Harris would have been required to pay $3,000 a month in spousal support after the divorce, but because of the domestic violence she endured, the judge said he would lower that amount to $1,000.
Victim
Vatican Stunned
Ireland
Catholic Ireland's stunning decision to close its embassy to the Vatican is a huge blow to the Holy See's prestige and may be followed by other countries which feel the missions are too expensive, diplomatic sources said on Friday.
The closure brought relations between Ireland and the Vatican, once ironclad allies, to an all-time low following the row earlier this year over the Irish Church's handling of sex abuse cases and accusations that the Vatican had encouraged secrecy.
Ireland will now be the only major country of ancient Catholic tradition without an embassy to the Vatican.
Dublin's foreign ministry said the embassy was being closed because "it yields no economic return" and that relations would be continued with an ambassador in Dublin.
Ireland
Bankrupt Church, Food Donations & A Limo
Crystal Cathedral
Some members of a bankrupt Orange County, Calif. megachurch are expressing outrage after fielding an email request for congregants to deliver food to waiting limos so that it can ferried to the founder's sick wife . The appeal comes weeks after a lawsuit charged that the founder of the Crystal Cathedral house of worship, Rev. Robert Schuller, and his family had been paying themselves lavish salaries and other benefits while the church was in financial straits.
"They've completely depleted the church's funds," one member, Bob Canfield, told the Orange County Register. "But they have shown that they have absolutely no remorse for what they've done. They're still being chauffeured around in limos. We, the congregants, have nothing."
An email sent recently by Crystal Cathedral administrators said that Schuller and his wife, Arvella, "would appreciate meals over the next three to four weeks." It added: "They are to be sent to the church in order to be transported to Arvella. The limo drivers could pick up the dinners or meet in the Tower Lobby around 4:30 p.m."
Arvella Schuller has been suffering from pneumonia, and the email asked that the food be low in sodium and include items such as fruit, meat, soup and eggs.
Crystal Cathedral
In Memory
Andy Rooney
Andy Rooney so dreaded the day he had to end his signature "60 Minutes" commentaries about life's large and small absurdities that he kept going until he was 92 years old.
Even then, he said he wasn't retiring. Writers never retire. But his life after the end of "A Few Minutes With Andy Rooney" was short: He died Friday night, according to CBS, only a month after delivering his 1,097th and final televised commentary.
Rooney had gone to the hospital for an undisclosed surgery, but major complications developed and he never recovered.
Rooney won one of his four Emmy Awards for a piece on whether there was a real Mrs. Smith who made Mrs. Smith's Pies. As it turned out, there was no Mrs. Smith.
Looking for something new to punctuate its weekly broadcast, "60 Minutes" aired its first Rooney commentary on July 2, 1978. He complained about people who keep track of how many people die in car accidents on holiday weekends. In fact, he said, the Fourth of July is "one of the safest weekends of the year to be going someplace."
More than three decades later, he was railing about how unpleasant air travel had become. "Let's make a statement to the airlines just to get their attention," he said. "We'll pick a week next year and we'll all agree not to go anywhere for seven days."
"60 Minutes" will end its broadcast Sunday with a tribute to Rooney by veteran correspondent Morley Safer.
Rooney was a freelance writer in 1949 when he encountered CBS radio star Arthur Godfrey in an elevator and - with the bluntness millions of people learned about later - told him his show could use better writing. Godfrey hired him and by 1953, when he moved to TV, Rooney was his only writer.
He wrote for CBS' Garry Moore during the early 1960s before settling into a partnership with Harry Reasoner at CBS News. Given a challenge to write on any topic, he wrote "An Essay on Doors" in 1964, and continued with contemplations on bridges, chairs and women.
He became such a part of the culture that comic Joe Piscopo satirized Rooney's squeaky voice with the refrain, "Did you ever ..." Rooney never started any of his essays that way. For many years, "60 Minutes" improbably was the most popular program on television and a dose of Rooney was what people came to expect for a knowing smile on the night before they had to go back to work.
Rooney left CBS in 1970 when it refused to air his angry essay about the Vietnam War. He went on TV for the first time, reading the essay on PBS and winning a Writers Guild of America award for it.
He returned to CBS three years later as a writer and producer of specials. Notable among them was the 1975 "Mr. Rooney Goes to Washington," whose lighthearted but serious look at government won him a Peabody Award for excellence in broadcasting.
Andrew Aitken Rooney was born on Jan. 14, 1919, in Albany, N.Y., and worked as a copy boy on the Albany Knickerbocker News while in high school. College at Colgate University was cut short by World War II, when Rooney worked for Stars and Stripes.
With another former Stars and Stripes staffer, Oram C. Hutton, Rooney wrote four books about the war. They included the 1947 book, "Their Conqueror's Peace: A Report to the American Stockholders," documenting offenses against the Germans by occupying forces.
Rooney and his wife, Marguerite, were married for 62 years before she died of heart failure in 2004. They had four children and lived in New York, with homes in Norwalk, Conn., and upstate New York. Daughter Emily Rooney is a former executive producer of ABC's "World News Tonight." Brian was a longtime ABC News correspondent, Ellen a photographer an