Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Col. Ken Allard: A tribute to Ed Koch (Washington Times)
Lots of people have "Ed Koch stories" - like when he was asked to explain how a former rival was defeated for re-election, even managing to lose in her home precinct. "Her neighbors know her!" he answered with the characteristic Koch shrug.
Brian Palmer: My Name Is Jehovah, and I'll Be Taking Care of You Tonight (Slate)
Why do we pay waiters more than God?
David Henry Sterry: "Mark Coker, Founder of Smashwords, on How to Get People to Read Your Book" (Huffington Post)
If an author does nothing else, write an incredible book. That's 90% of the battle. The other 10% I'd divide into the following four essential items: …
Self-Publishing Now The First Choice For Some Writers (NPR)
MARK COKER: Well, you know, there's always been a stigma associated with self-publishing. You know, five years ago when we started Smashwords, self-publishing was seen as the option of last resort. It was seen as the option for failed writers. And the publishing industry held that view, and even writers held that view. But that's changing now. Self-publishing is now becoming the option of first choice for many writers. And even traditional publishers now have newfound respect for self-publishing. They're using the self-publishing bestseller lists to troll for new authors to acquire.
Mark Coker: Smashwords Authors Gain Seat at the Merchandising Table with the Apple iBookstore's Breakout Books Promotion (Smashwords Blog)
If anyone doubts the speed at which the epicenter of book publishing is shifting from publishers to self-published authors, doubt no more.
Interview by Laura Barnett: Jenny Holzer - portrait of the artist (Guardian)
The American artist, best known for her projections and work with words, talks about her big breakthrough, her inspirations - and making her daughter angry.
Decca Aitkenhead: "Russell Brand: 'It's irrelevant what other people think of you'" (Guardian)
His self-destructive urges have more than once threatened to completely derail his career - but the comedian turned Hollywood star says he has never been more focused and driven.
David Bruce: Wise Up! Police (Athens News)
Stock car racer Jeff Gordon once went over the speed limit on a road because he was late getting to the airport, and a police officer stopped him. Hoping to get out of a speeding ticket, Mr. Gordon said, "I'm Jeff Gordon. Do you follow racing?" The police officer replied, "Yes, I do. I'm a big Dale Earnhardt fan. Here's your ticket."
Kind of Funny But Mean, Too (Twitter)
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David Bruce has approximately 50 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
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Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Bojan Suggests
7 Islands
Bojan
Thanks, Bojan!
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Thick marine layer = not a lot of sun.
Trespass Ruling 'Great Victory'
Lucy Lawless
"Xena: Warrior Princess" actor Lucy Lawless says she's won a "great victory" after a New Zealand judge handed her a modest sentence but declined to order costs sought by oil company Shell for her role in a protest aboard an oil-drilling ship.
Lawless and seven other Greenpeace activists were each ordered Thursday to pay 651 New Zealand dollars ($547) costs to a port company and complete 120 hours of community service after earlier pleading guilty to trespass charges.
Last February, Lawless and six other activists climbed a drilling tower on the Arctic-bound vessel Noble Discoverer to protest oil exploration in the Arctic. Another protester helped from the ground. Lawless spent four days atop the 174-foot (53-meter) tower, camping and blogging about her experiences. The action briefly delayed the ship's voyage.
Shell Todd Oil Services, which had chartered the ship, sought about 650,000 New Zealand dollars ($545,000) in reparations from the protesters.
Lucy Lawless
Fans Mark Birthday in Jamaica
Bob Marley
Hundreds of tourists have joined Rastafarian priests and reggae musicians at Bob Marley's old house in Jamaica to mark the 68th anniversary of the late reggae icon's birth.
Since his death from cancer in 1981, Marley has become more than just Jamaica's most famous musical export. Marley's message of unity and respect remains a beacon of hope in this Caribbean nation struggling with joblessness and violence.
On Wednesday, some of Marley's relatives and old friends danced and chanted to the pounding of drums in the yard of his Kingston home, which is now a museum.
Culture Minister Lisa Hanna said his lyrics still call for Jamaicans to create a "more wholesome, caring, peaceful and progressive society."
Bob Marley
New York Parking Lot Version
'Richard III'
It seems only fitting: With the bones of King Richard III found under a parking lot in Britain, a theater company that performs free Shakespeare plays every summer in a New York parking lot has decided what to stage this year - "Richard III."
The Drilling Company said Wednesday its Shakespeare in the Parking Lot program will feature the tyrant from Aug. 1 to Aug. 17 in the parking lot at Ludlow and Broome streets on Manhattan's Lower East Side
Says director Hamilton Clancy: "We have known for a long time that parking lots and Shakespeare were connected. Our intention is to bring Richard III back to life in a parking lot."
'Richard III'
3 Weeks
Barbara Walters
Barbara Walters isn't "scratching too much" from chickenpox, but she says she won't be back at "The View" for three more weeks.
Walters phoned into the ABC talk show Wednesday. Calling from her home, she reported that she's weak but not in any pain.
She was hospitalized on Jan. 19 after fainting and cutting her head at a party in Washington. The 83-year-old has said she had the chickenpox and a temperature at the time, but didn't realize it. She suffered a concussion and got six stitches. She was released 10 days later.
She announced Wednesday: "I'm not itching away."
Then she marveled that the best remedy for itching is an age-old one, saying: "We have Facebook, Twitter and calamine lotion."
Barbara Walters
Liberty Global To Buy For $16B
Virgin Media
Liberty Global Inc., the cable TV operator controlled by media mogul John Malone, is buying U.K.-based Virgin Media Inc. in a $16 billion deal that steps up the rivalry between Malone and fellow billionaire Rupert Murdoch.
Liberty Global is paying $5.9 billion in cash and the rest in stock for Virgin Media. The combination, announced late Tuesday, will provide stiffer competition in the U.K. to satellite TV provider BSkyB, in which Murdoch's News Corp. owns a 40 percent stake. The combined company will become one of the world's largest providers of cable TV, Internet and phone services, with 25 million customers in 14 countries.
Liberty Global is the largest cable operator in most of its 11 European markets. Virgin Media is the second-biggest pay TV company in the U.K. after BSkyB, or British Sky Broadcasting Group PLC.
Besides the cable TV, Internet and landline phone operations, Virgin Media runs a mobile phone business. That's a business Liberty Global doesn't currently have. Virgin Group boss Richard Branson - a multibillionaire, like Malone and Murdoch - has a minority stake in Virgin Media.
Virgin Media
EU Moves To Save
Pompeii
The European Union launched a 105 million euro ($142.05 million) restoration of the Roman city of Pompeii on Wednesday, and said it would seek to protect conservation funds from the mafia.
The project began a day after police arrested a restorer on suspicion of pocketing hugely inflated fees for work at the crumbling world heritage site that was declared to be in a state of emergency in 2008 due to its deterioration.
The money will pay for a new drainage system, the reinforcement of some structures and staff training, and includes "a variety of measures to protect itself from the influence of organized crime - the Camorra - which infects many parts of the region," the European Commission said.
The Camorra is the local mafia which thrives on trafficking, extortion, and government contract frauds in and around Naples, the largest city in southern Italy, 25 km (15 miles) from Pompeii.
Pompeii
Giant Aluminum Sculpture Missing, Presumed Scrapped
BLACKVAULTfalloffstone
A piece of public art in Orlando, Fla., was stolen from a fenced-in city storage lot and apparently sold for scrap metal, according to local station WESH Channel 2.
The aluminum piece, insured for over $175,000, was created by artist Peter Shelton in the 1980s. Called BLACKVAULTfalloffstone, it was originally displayed in Minneapolis. It was moved to Orlando in the '90s after city officials expressed interest.
However, the artwork, a life-size figure atop a giant boulder, was never displayed in Orlando. City officials felt the piece, intended to be interactive, was a safety liability. So, it stayed inside a fenced-in area.
Nobody is sure exactly when the art was stolen. A city official discovered that it was missing in August, and a police report was filed in November. (Reports on the incident are just being released.) Even though the piece was insured, city officials don't plan to file a claim because the policy has a $10,000 deductible, according to the Orlando Sentinel.
BLACKVAULTfalloffstone
Lowest Water Level On Record
2 Great Lakes
Two of the Great Lakes have hit their lowest water levels ever recorded, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said Tuesday, capping more than a decade of below-normal rain and snowfall and higher temperatures that boost evaporation.
Measurements taken last month show Lake Huron and Lake Michigan have reached their lowest ebb since record keeping began in 1918, and the lakes could set additional records over the next few months, the corps said. The lakes were 29 inches below their long-term average and had declined 17 inches since January 2012.
The other Great Lakes - Superior, Erie and Ontario - were also well below average.
The low water has caused heavy economic losses by forcing cargo ships to carry lighter loads, leaving boat docks high and dry, and damaging fish-spawning areas. And vegetation has sprung up in newly exposed shoreline bottomlands, a turnoff for hotel customers who prefer sandy beaches.
2 Great Lakes
Prized Bosnian Cultural Relic
Sarajevo Haggadah
Officials in charge of Bosnia's national monuments said Wednesday they rejected an offer by New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art to exhibit one of Bosnia's most prized relics, a 600-year-old Jewish manuscript that remains locked in a museum which closed because of a lack of money.
Ljiljana Sevo of Bosnia's National Monuments Preservation Commission said that the Sarajevo Haggadah could not be loaned because of the unresolved status of its home, the Bosnian National Museum. The rejection puts pressure on the government to try to step in and save the museum.
The manuscript's trip to New York requires special conservatory preparations. Sevo said Bosnia has experts who could do it, but there is nobody who would pay them.
The National Museum and six other institutions that are the custodians of Bosnia's national heritage - and care for precious medieval manuscripts, religious relicts and natural history artifacts, among other items - are victims of the 1995 peace agreement that ended Bosnia's war. The deal split the Balkan nation along ethnic lines into two semi-autonomous parts linked by a weak central government and guided by a constitution that did not envisage a culture ministry.
Museum staff worked for a whole year without pay before they lost every hope last October, gathered one more time at the fountain in the museum's botanical garden, threw a coin into it and made a wish that the institution will reopen soon. Then, they left the building and nailed wooden boards that read "closed" across its front door. Many cried.
Sarajevo Haggadah
25 Billion Songs
iTunes
Apple's iTunes music store hit its 25 billionth download - equal to selling more than three songs for every person on Earth - and on Wednesday gave the German student who bought the track a gift card worth 10,000 euro ($13,500).
Economics student Phillip Luepke, 22, of Hanover, Germany, downloaded the techno song "Monkey Drums (Goksel Vancin Remix)" by British DJ Chase Buch, hitting the number a decade after the online music store debuted.
Luepke, who is currently studying for exams, said he came across the song at a disco last Saturday night.
He used the song-identification smartphone application Shazam to look up its name, after which he downloaded "Monkey Drums" the following evening.
Cupertino, California-based Apple launched the iTunes store in April 2003 and has averaged about 15,000 songs downloaded each minute. The store has a catalog of more than 26 million songs in 119 countries.
iTunes
World's Oldest Known Living Wild Bird Gives Birth
Wisdom
The oldest known living wild bird in the world has given birth to a healthy hatchling. The 62-year-old bird, "Wisdom," last made headlines in 2011, when the albatross survived the aftermath of the Japanese tsunami.
Wisdom has defied the odds in many aspects: She's already lived nearly twice as long as the average Laysan albatross. She was given her name after being tagged by a U.S. Geological Survey researcher in 1956. The USGS said in a statement that since being tagged, Wisdom has flown an estimated 2 million to 3 million miles, or "four to six trips from the Earth to the Moon and back again with plenty of miles to spare."
"To know that she can still successfully raise young at age 60-plus, that is beyond words," USGS bird banding program chief Bruce Peterjohn said. "While the process of banding a bird has not changed greatly during the past century, the information provided by birds marked with a simple numbered metal band has transformed our knowledge of birds."
And while there have been other albatross birds spotted in the wild who are estimated to be around 50 years old, Wisdom is the only one on record to have given birth at such an advanced age. Though, some scientists may have seen the feat coming, when Wisdom gave birth two years ago to another chick, and has given birth to a total of five chicks since 2006.
Because the Laysan albatross mates for life, USGS officials estimate that Wisdom has had to take on several "much younger" male partners over the years to help foster an estimated 35 chicks.
Wisdom
In Memory
Stuart Freeborn
Stuart Freeborn, a pioneering movie makeup artist who created creatures for "2001: A Space Odyssey" and the "Star Wars" films, has died. He was 98.
"Star Wars" director George Lucas said in a statement that Freeborn was "a makeup legend" whose artistry will live on forever.
For "Star Wars," Freeborn helped create wise Jedi knight Yoda - a diminutive green figure whose features were partly inspired by Albert Einstein and partly by Freeborn himself - and 7-foot-tall wookie Chewbacca.
During a six-decade career, Freeborn also designed the apes in a memorable sequence of Stanley Kubrick's space epic "2001."
Stuart Freeborn
In Memory
Paul Tanner
Paul Tanner, a trombonist with the Glenn Miller Orchestra who later played a space-age instrument on the Beach Boys hit "Good Vibrations," has died at 95.
His stepson, Douglas Darnell, of Youngstown, Ohio, says Tanner died of pneumonia Tuesday morning at an assisted living center in Carlsbad, Calif.
Tanner performed with Miller from 1938 to 1942. During his long career he also worked as a movie studio and ABC musician in California, and performed with stars that included Tex Beneke, Henry Mancini and Arturo Toscanini.
He also helped develop the electro-theramin, a keyboard-style electronic instrument. Tanner provided its eerie sound on several Beach Boys recordings, including "Good Vibrations."
Tanner also was a music professor at UCLA for 23 years and helped write several books.
Paul Tanner
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