Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Shooting Star and Milky Way (Photo)
Over Lake Tekapo, New Zealand.
Froma Harrop: Is the Sequester That Awful? (Creators Syndicate)
The sequester may be "dumb," as the president says, but one thing it is, is interesting. Especially the politics.
ALAN S. BLINDER: Morning Joe's accuracy deficit (Politico)
We've all played the game "telephone," where a message gets distorted in the retelling, often so much so that the original sender has a hard time recognizing it when it comes back. Nowadays, "telephone" is played in the blogosphere, and that's how I felt when I first learned that my views on reducing the federal budget deficit were portrayed as in sharp contrast to those of my famous Princeton colleague, Paul Krugman.
Molly Colin: Can You Get In Trouble for Performing CPR? (Slate)
Why do so many bystanders refuse to help someone having a heart attack?
Ron Finley: An unlikely farm feeds a community (YouTube 6:37)
Ron Finley is the planter of Food Forest, a South Los Angeles edible garden. His goal is to remake spaces defined by asphalt and dead grass into productive places of beauty.
Stuart Jeffries: Jude Law on phone hacking, being 40 and his new film 'Side Effects' (Guardian)
The actor has long had a fraught relationship with the media and their intrusions on his private life. As he promotes his new film with Steven Soderbergh, he talks about life post-Leveson and his love of theatre.
Annalee Newitz: The man who created internet memes - before the internet (io9)
This video, known only as "The Reagans Speak Out on Drugs," was released on VHS in 1988. It's an almost seamless re-edit of the the famous "Just Say No" speech given by the Reagans in September of 1986 - except in this version, the President and the First Lady are doing their best to get us all hooked on drugs.
Mike Floorwalker: The 5 Most Embarrassing Past Lives of Famous Musicians (Cracked)
#2. David Bowie Released an Insane Children's Song
David Bruce's Amazon Author Page
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David Bruce has approximately 50 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
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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
Overcast and windy.
Seeks Mid-March Sale
Rhythm & Hues
Rhythm & Hues Studios said it needs to be sold by mid-March or it will run out of money and is asking a judge to approve speeding up its auction process, the company said in court filings this week.
The Oscar-winning visual-effects studio behind "Life of Pi" and "Babe" filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last month, but managed to secure roughly $20 million in bridge loans from Legendary Pictures, Universal Studios and 20th Century Fox Studios so it could continue working on a handful of film projects.
But the funding the company received is finite, and its work for Universal on the big-budget adventure "R.I.P.D." is slated to end Friday, Rhythm & Hues said in U.S. bankruptcy court filings.
The company added that it will have difficulty finding new projects to work on while it is having financial difficulties, which could necessitate more layoffs. Rhythm & Hues had roughly 700 employees working in California before it went bankrupt, but according to filings it has laid off roughly 250 people.
Rhythm & Hues
Proposes Museum
George Lucas
"Star Wars" creator George Lucas wants to build a museum dedicated to visual storytelling in San Francisco's Presidio that would house an art collection he amassed over four decades.
The filmmaker says he has long sought to showcase his collection of 150 years of populist art, which includes illustrations by Norman Rockwell and Maxfield Parrish along with comics and digital technology.
Lucas says he doesn't have enough wall space at his 6,000-acre Skywalker Ranch in Marin County, so he wants to fund and build a museum.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported Wednesday that Lucas submitted a 20-page proposal to the Presidio Trust last week. It was one of 16 bids to occupy the former commissary site at Crissy Field.
George Lucas
Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award
Marianne Boruch
Marianne Boruch, a Purdue University creative writing teacher, has won this year's $100,000 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, a California university announced Monday.
Boruch was honored for her collection, "The Book of Hours," and a ceremony will be held April 18 at Claremont Graduate University east of Los Angeles.
Boruch lives in West Lafayette, Ind., and teaches at Purdue and in the Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College in North Carolina. Her work has appeared in the New Yorker, Paris Review, the London Review of Books and other publications.
Heidy Steidlmayer of Vacaville, Calif., won the $10,000 Kate Tufts Discovery Award for her book "Fowling Piece." The award is given for a first book by a poet of "genuine promise," the university said.
Marianne Boruch
Hospital News
Valerie Harper
Valerie Harper, who played Rhoda Morgenstern on television's "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and its spinoff, "Rhoda," has been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer.
People magazine reported on its website Wednesday that the 73-year-old actress received the news on Jan. 15. Tests revealed she has leptomeningeal carcinomatosis, a rare condition that occurs when cancer cells spread into the fluid-filled membrane surrounding the brain. The report says Harper's doctors have said she has as little as three months to live.
Harper's character, Rhoda, was one of television's most beloved characters during the 1970s, and the tart-tongued, self-deprecating Rhoda made Harper a star. She won three consecutive Emmys (1971-73) as supporting actress on "Mary" plus another for outstanding lead actress for "Rhoda," which ran from 1974-78.
Harper began show business as a dancer in several Broadway musicals, and worked in summer stock and with the Second City improv group.
Valerie Harper
Dancer Confesses
Bolshoi
A Russian ballet star who has danced the roles of violent and powerful historical figures at the Bolshoi Theater has confessed to organizing the acid attack on the theater's ballet chief, Moscow police said Wednesday.
A masked man threw a jar of sulfuric acid in the face of artistic director Sergei Filin as he returned home late on Jan. 17, severely burning his eyes. The 42-year-old former dancer is undergoing treatment in Germany.
Bolshoi soloist Pavel Dmitrichenko, 29, confessed to masterminding the attack, and two other men confessed to being the perpetrator and the driver of the getaway car, police said in a statement. All three were to appear in court on Thursday, when prosecutors were to move for criminal charges to be filed against them.
The attack threw light on a culture of deep intrigue and infighting at the famed Moscow theater. Within hours of the attack, Bolshoi managers were speculating that the attack could have been in retaliation for Filin's selection of certain dancers over others for prized roles.
Bolshoi
Higher Court To Hear Appeal
Pussy Riot
Moscow's highest court panel is examining an appeal by three members of the punk band Pussy Riot against their conviction for an anti-Putin protest.
Pavel Chikov, head of the Agora legal aid group which represents the band, said Wednesday that Moscow City Court's presidium has requested files of the guilty verdict for "hooliganism" they received in August for a performance in Moscow's main cathedral.
Russia's human rights ombudsman Vladimir Lukin has filed a supporting affidavit asking for the conviction to be overturned. Lukin's affidavits have special legal status and have frequently helped free defendants in a country where 99 percent of trials end in convictions.
Yekaterina Samutsevich, Maria Alekhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova were given two-year sentences. Samutsevich was later released on appeal, but her conviction was not overturned.
Pussy Riot
Gets 6 To 23 Months
Beanie Sigel
Rapper Beanie Sigel has been sentenced to six to 23 months in prison after pleading guilty to a narcotics possession charge in a Philadelphia suburb.
The Delaware County Daily Times says Sigel, whose real name is Dwight Grant, entered the plea Wednesday to a misdemeanor count of illegal possession of Percocet, a painkiller.
Sigel has been behind bars since he was arrested Aug. 29 in Tinicum Township. A co-defendant entered a plea to a firearms charge.
Defense attorney Carson Morris called his client a successful entertainer who had made some mistakes, but said "he's ready to go ahead and put that behind him and move on with is life."
Beanie Sigel
Disney Working
Star Wars
Star Wars fans have more than just Episodes 7, 8 and 9 to look forward to.
Disney CEO Bob Iger said at the annual shareholders meeting in Phoenix on Wednesday that the company is developing "some standalone movies" featuring Star Wars characters.
The news is likely to set off a new round of speculation about what's in store for the Lucasfilm franchise. The buzz has been at fever pitch levels since The Walt Disney Co. said in October it was acquiring the studio for $4 billion.
Iger didn't say which characters might be featured in the standalone films. Some Star Wars characters such as bounty hunter Boba Fett have been given bigger treatments in comic books.
Star Wars
Impact Structure
Decorah, Iowa
Buried beneath the rocks, dirt, buildings and roads of the city of Decorah, Iowa, lies a 470 million-year-old meteorite crater.
Unlike the craters on the pockmarked surfaces of the moon and Mars, this crater can't be seen by looking down at Earth's surface, at least not by the human eye.
But recent aerial surveys primarily aimed at getting a better picture of the minerals that underlie the region got a look at the crater structure using instruments that detect the variations in gravity of different types of rock, as well as their ability to conduct electricity.
The crater, known as the Decorah Impact Structure, was discovered during a 2008-2009 effort by scientists with the Iowa Geological and Water Survey to examine samples from drill cores (cylinders of sediment drilled out from the ground). In them, they found a unique unit of shale beneath and near Decorah.
The shale formed a "nice circular basin" about 3.4 miles (5.5 kilometers) wide, Robert McKay, a geologist at the Iowa Geological Survey, said in the USGS statement. That makes the Decorah crater about four to five times the size of Arizona's famed Meteor Crater, Bedrosian said.
Decorah, Iowa
Golden Gate's Grey Stepsister
Bay Bridge
The San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge moved out of the shadow of its more famous sibling, the Golden Gate, to dazzle on Tuesday night when a high-tech artist turned it into a sculpture of moving lights.
Some 25,000 LED lights transformed the 1.8-mile long, 500-foot (152-meter) tall bridge into something of a giant lava lamp. Controlled by a computer, the white lights flickered on and off randomly in never-repeating patterns.
New York artist Leo Villareal, 46, stood in the wind and rain on a pier facing the bridge and hit a key on a laptop to switch on what he called his fantasy project.
Organizers of the privately funded project say it turned the Bay Bridge into the world's biggest illuminated sculpture.
Bay Bridge
Mythical Sunstone May Have Existed After All
Vikings
It sounds like something out of an "Indiana Jones" movie: the quest for a crystal that once helped sailors navigate the seas. But now researchers say the mythical Viking "sunstone" may actually have existed.
According to the Independent, their clue was a crystal found on an English shipwreck off the Channel Islands. The ship sank in 1592. Scientists say they believe the substance made of calcite and known as Iceland xpar, was used as a navigational tool alongside the compass. This tracks with ancient Norse mentions of such a tool, which probably existed as well.
Guy Ropars, reported the Independent, said in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society that the oblong-shaped crystal that they found "could really have been used as an accurate optical sun compass as an aid to ancient navigation."
He added, "It permits the observer to follow the azimuth of the sun, far below the horizon with an accuracy as great as plus or minus one degree." Translation: The crystal could have served as a guide even on cloudy days or short Nordic nights.
Vikings
In Memory
Stompin' Tom Connors
Canadian country-folk singer Stompin' Tom Connors, whose toe-tapping musical spirit and fierce patriotism established him as one of Canada's biggest cultural icons, has died, his promoter said Wednesday night. He was 77.
Connors passed away from natural causes at his home Wednesday evening, Brian Edwards said. The musician, rarely seen without his signature black cowboy hat and stomping cowboy boots, was best known for songs "Sudbury Saturday Night," ''Bud the Spud" and especially "The Hockey Song," a fan favorite played at hockey arenas around North America.
Although wide commercial appeal eluded Connors for much of his four-decade career, his songs are regarded as veritable national anthems thanks to their unabashed embrace of all things Canadiana.
Dubbed Stompin' Tom for his habit of pounding the floor with his left foot during performances, Connors garnered a devoted following through straight-ahead country-folk tunes that drew inspiration from his extensive travels around Canada, dating back to his itinerant teenage years when he roamed the country working one job or another.
The country that Connors celebrated in song was strangely ignored by other Canadian songwriters, he often said.
"I don't know why I seem to be the only one, or almost the only one, writing about this country," Connors said in 2008. "This country is the most underwritten country in the world as far as songs are concerned. We starve. The people in this country are starving for songs about their homeland."
He was born in Saint John, New Brunswick, on Feb. 9, 1936, to an unwed teenage mother. According to his autobiography, "Before the Fame," he often lived hand-to-mouth as a youngster, hitchhiking with his mother from the age of three, begging on the street by the age of four. At age eight, he was placed in the care of the charity Children's Aid and adopted a year later by a family in Skinner's Pond, Prince Edward Island. He ran away four years later to hitchhike across Canada.
Connors bought his first guitar at age 14 and picked up odd jobs as he wandered from town to town, at times working on fishing boats, as a grave digger, tobacco picker and fry cook.
Connors is said to have begun his musical career when he found himself a nickel short of a beer at the Maple Leaf Hotel in Timmins, Ontario, in 1964 at age 28. The bartender agreed to give him a drink if he would play a few songs, and that turned into a 14-month contract to play at the hotel. Three years later, Connors made his first album and garnered his first hit in 1970 with "Bud The Spud."
Hundreds more songs followed, many based on actual events, people and towns he had visited.
He was appointed to the Order of Canada in 1996, one of the country's highest honors. He also had his own postage stamp.
Connors is survived by his wife Lena, two sons, two daughters and several grandchildren.
Stompin' Tom Connors
In Memory
Alvin Lee
British blues-rock guitarist Alvin Lee, who was best known for his performance with rock band Ten Years After at Woodstock in 1969, died on Wednesday at age 68, his family said.
"With great sadness we have to announce that Alvin unexpectedly passed away early this morning after unforeseen complications following a routine surgical procedure," the family said in a statement on the singer's official website.
Lee and Ten Years After rose to international prominence after a much-lauded performance at the 1969 Woodstock music festival in New York state.
The band's song "I'm Going Home," which featured Lee's singing and extended guitar solos, opened the band to bigger audiences after it was included in the documentary "Woodstock" in 1970.
Ten Years After's biggest hits followed Woodstock, including "Love Like a Man" in 1970 and "I'd Love to Change the World" in 1971.
Lee formed Ten Years After in 1966 but left the band in 1973 to focus on a solo career only to reform the group in 1988.
Ten Years After released 11 studio albums between 1966 and 2008. Lee put out 14 solo albums, the most recent was "Still on the Road to Freedom" in 2012.
Alvin Lee
In Memory
William Moody (Paul Bearer)
William Moody, better known to pro wrestling fans as Paul Bearer, the pasty-faced, urn-carrying manager for performers The Undertaker and Kane, has died, the WWE said. He was 58.
A spokesman for the wrestling company said Moody's family contacted the WWE to report the death on Tuesday. No cause was released.
After stints in various independent wrestling promotions, Moody joined the WWE in 1990 and quickly became associated with The Undertaker, a character who claimed he was undead and boasted of mystical powers.
In the WWE plotline, Paul Bearer later managed Undertaker's on-screen half brother Kane. He also managed the bad-guy character Mick "Mankind" Foley.
His shrill catchphrase, "Ooohhh yeeesss!" and contorted facial expressions made him one of the sports-entertainment company's more popular personalities for more than a decade.
In the outlandish world of pro wrestling, Paul Bearer was once placed in a glass casket and buried in concrete. In his final WWE appearance last year, Paul Bearer was locked in a freezer by Randy Orton and left there tied up even after he was found by Kane.
Moody was a perfect fit as a macabre mortician. When he joined the WWE, he ditched the blond hair and Percy Pringle name he forged in the 1980s for jet black locks complete with powdered white face. In the act, Paul Bearer's urn had some unexplained power that protected the Undertaker, allowing his protege to escape unscathed from every leg drop and big boot to the face. Paul Bearer also hosted the WWE segment, "The Funeral Parlor."
Moody, an Alabama native, told the pro wrestling website PWTorch.com last year that had a degree in mortuary science. He said he was a licensed funeral director and embalmer. He was called to WWE chairman Vince McMahon's office about taking the job as Undertaker's manager without the company knowing his true background.
Moody battled health and weight problems and worked on and off for the company after 2002.
William Moody (Paul Bearer)
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