Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Rebecca Schulman: Save Our Stacks (Slate)
It's not about the books. It's about the books representing the last place on campus where intellectual contemplation thrives.
James Ward: This Life a Long Disease (Dublin Review of Books)
Leo Damrosch's new biography of Jonathan Swift closes by detailing some of the many indignities suffered by its subject after death.
David Bruce's Amazon Author Page
David Bruce's Smashwords Page
David Bruce's Blog
David Bruce's Lulu Storefront
David Bruce's Apple iBookstore
David Bruce has approximately 50 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
wrote:
took the day off.
said:
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
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.
So - to let you know what's going on, the guestbook on bartcop.com is
still open for those who want to write something in memory of Bart.
I did an interview on Netroots Radio about Bart's passing
( www.stitcher.com/s?eid=32893545 )
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
Thanks, Marc!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Another day, another heat record broken.
TBS Extends Late-Night Deal To 2018
Conan O'Brien
Conan O'Brien will continue to hold forth on Time Warner's TBS through at least 2018, under the terms of a new contract that will extend the host's relationship with the network for three years.
The extension is the second the two sides have negotiated in the last two years. TBS said in 2013 that it had agreed to a new pact with the lanky, red-headed comic that would
keep him on its air through November of 2015. The new agreement comes as the senior ranks at Time Warner's Turner unit have exhibited some churn, with entertainment chief Steve Koonin departing in April to become CEO of the Atlanta Hawks.
In announcing the new deal, Turner and O'Brien bring a small degree of stability to a timeslot that is in the midst of wrenching change. Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers started in the 11:30 p.m. and 12:30 a.m. slots at NBC earlier this year, and David Letterman is slated to retire from CBS' "The Late Show:" in 2015, while Craig Ferguson will step down from the network's "Late Late Show" at the end of this year. Stephen Colbert, who hosts Comedy Central's "Colbert Report," will take Letterman's perch. What is more, Chelsea Handler has indicated she will leave her "Chelsea Lately" at the end of this year.
O'Brien's show, "Conan. " does not get the biggest numbers in late night, but TBS has indicated the show's value comes from its ability to draw viewers between the ages of 18 and 34, as well as its popularity in digital and social-media realms.
Conan O'Brien
'Monty Python' Reference Slipped In
'Game of Thrones'
Monty Python fans, rejoice! Though the comedy troupe's classic movie "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" is now nearly 40 years old, it still pops up where nobody expects it (much like the Spanish Inquisition). Like on "Game of Thrones," for instance.
Linguist David Peterson, who created the Dothraki language and multiple dialects of High and Low Valyrian for "Game of Thrones," revealed that he planted a "Python" Easter egg back in the third episode of the current "GoT" season, "Breaker of Chains."
"There's a scene where the Meereenese rider is challenging Daenerys's champion," Peterson revealed on the show's production blog. "He's shouting and Nathalie Emmanuel [Missandei] is translating - but she's not translating what he's saying. He's actually saying a Low Valyrian translation of the French guy's insults in 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail.'"
If you listen closely during the "GoT" episode, you can hear the champion from Meereen begin his rant with "Mhysa," which is what many of the freed slaves call Daenerys: It means "mother."
Peterson said people were asking him, "'Is he saying a 'your momma' joke?' Close… But no, he's actually starting out with, "Your mother is a hamster."
'Game of Thrones'
Hero Cat
Tara
A family cat is a hero and a viral Internet sensation after saving her boy from a dog attack.
Jeremy Triantafilo, 4, was riding his bike in his family's driveway off Eagle Vista Drive when a neighborhood dog, described as a Labrador and chow mix, came from behind and bit down on his leg.
The dog was violently pulling Jeremy down his driveway when his kitty, Tara, bolted to the rescue. Tara plowed into the much-larger dog and chased it away.
"Tara is my hero," Jeremy said Wednesday afternoon. He's wounded and has stitches for the dog bites, but he's without major injuries.
People across the country have shared in the cat's heroics after her owner, Roger Triantafilo, posted household surveillance video of the attack and rescue on YouTube. Triantafilo posted the 56-second clip Wednesday morning, and by the end of the day it had already racked up nearly 4.5 million views.
Tara
Slappy Was A No-Show
Yo-Yo Ma
Yo-Yo Ma has played his 300-year-old cello for eight of the nine Supreme Court justices.
Ma entertained Wednesday at the court's annual spring musical concert in an ornate conference room beneath portraits of Chief Justices Warren Burger and William Rehnquist.
Ma played pieces by Bach and John Williams, as well as a Catalan folk song that he said was a favourite of famed Spanish cellist Pablo Casals. Ma performed on a 1712 Davidoff Stradivarius cello.
The current chief justice and Ma were classmates at Harvard in the 1970s. Chief Justice John Roberts (R-1%) jokingly said they had much in common, including that neither took Music 101 in college.
Clarence Thomas (R-Long Dong Silver) was the only justice absent.
Yo-Yo Ma
Brown University
Emma Watson
"Harry Potter" star Emma Watson is graduating from Brown University.
The 24-year-old British actress is due to graduate this month from the Providence, R.I., Ivy League university with a degree in English literature.
Watson started at Brown in 2009. Along the way, she spent time studying at England's Oxford University and keeping up her film career.
A Brown spokesman says Watson is due to attend the graduation ceremony on May 25.
Emma Watson
Filming In Albuquerque
'Better Call Saul'
A "Breaking Bad" spinoff on Walter White's shady attorney, "Better Call Saul," will be filmed in Albuquerque, the New Mexico Film Office announced Wednesday.
In a statement, officials said that the TV series will be shot at Albuquerque Studios - which was home to the six-year run of "Breaking Bad" - and the production will employ at least 75 to 90 New Mexico crewmembers.
Mayor Richard Berry said the city enthusiastically welcomes back Sony and AMC-TV after the popularity of "Breaking Bad." The show sparked tourism in Albuquerque as visitors sought popular sites from the show.
The new series will follow sleazy attorney Saul Goodman, played by Bob Odenkirk, as he defends drug lords, petty criminals and those allegedly injured in minor traffic accident.
'Better Call Saul'
Ex-Reporter Admits Hacking
Rupert
The former royal editor of Rupert Murdoch's News of the World tabloid admitted to a London court on Wednesday he had repeatedly hacked the voicemails of Princes William and Harry, and William's wife Kate Middleton.
Clive Goodman, who was jailed in 2007 for illegally accessing voicemails on the mobile phones of royal aides, said he had hacked Queen Elizabeth's grandsons almost a decade ago in search of stories while working at the now-defunct tabloid.
From late 2005 until his arrest the following year, Middleton's phone was hacked 155 times despite her often changing the PIN number to access her voicemails, William's was hacked 35 and Harry's nine times, the court was told.
Despite the regular royal hackings, Goodman said detectives had never before asked him about the tapping of the princes' phones and it had not been publicly disclosed before the trial.
Goodman, 56, is now on trial accused with the paper's former editor Andy Coulson, later Prime Minister David Cameron's media chief, of authorising illegal payments to police officers to obtain royal telephone directories.
Rupert
Judge Orders Fired Executive To Leave
Pacifica Foundation
A U.S. judge has ordered the fired executive director of California's Pacifica Foundation Radio in Berkeley to leave the office she has been occupying around the clock for the last two months, saying she was trespassing.
The Pacifica board voted 11-7 to fire Summer Reese, 40, from her $105,000 job in March. Days later, Reese returned with bolt cutters and moved into the office with her mother and other supporters, equipped with air mattresses for beds.
The judge also denied a motion that would have allowed Reese to keep her job until a lawsuit filed by board members supporting her is determined.
Pacifica runs five progressive radio stations across the country, including KPFA in Berkeley and New York's WBAI.
Pacifica Foundation
College Students Walk
Commencement Speakers
Forget about their students not making it to graduation. Now colleges have to wonder whether their speakers will.
From former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (R-9/11) to the head of the International Monetary Fund and the ex-chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley, the list of commencement speakers backing out following student and faculty protests continues to grow.
Former UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau, a champion of students in the country illegally, had been scheduled to speak at Haverford College's ceremony in the suburbs of Philadelphia, but was opposed over the use of force by university police during the Occupy movement. He backed out of the speech on Monday.
Brandeis University, meanwhile, withdrew its offer of an honorary degree to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Muslim women's advocate who has made comments critical of Islam.
Commencement Speakers
As Young As 7 Working On US Tobacco Farms
Children
You may have to be at least 18 to buy cigarettes in the U.S., but children as young as 7 are working long hours in fields harvesting nicotine- and pesticide-laced tobacco leaves under sometimes hazardous and sweltering conditions, according to a report released Wednesday by an international rights group.
The Human Rights Watch report details findings from interviews with more than 140 children working on farms in North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia, where a majority of the country's tobacco is grown. The group acknowledges that most of what it documented is legal under U.S. law but aims to highlight the practice and urge both governments and tobacco companies to take further steps to protect children from the hazardous harvesting of the cash crop that has built businesses, funded cities and influenced cultures.
Children interviewed by the group in 2012 and 2013 reported vomiting, nausea and headaches while working on tobacco farms. The symptoms they reported are consistent with nicotine poisoning often called Green Tobacco Sickness, which occurs when workers absorb nicotine through their skin while handling tobacco plants.
Republican Kentucky state Sen. Paul Hornback, who has worked in tobacco fields since he was 10 and now farms about 100 acres of tobacco in Shelby County, Kentucky, said while he adheres to federal regulations to keep his workers safe, he doesn't believe further restrictions are needed.
"People get pretty extreme about trying to protect everybody from everything," Hornback said. "It's hard manual labour, but there's nothing wrong with hard manual labour."
Children
Another Study
Cellphones
Using your phone for 15 hours a month over five years doesn't sound like much, but that's the amount of time scientists say can increase your risk of developing certain types of brain cancers. Despite previous studies that have debunked the connection between cellphones and cancer, Agence France-Presse reports that cell phone uses are exposing themselves to a greater risk of developing glioma and meningioma tumors, compared to people who don't use their phone as much. The report is based on a new study published in British journal Occupational and Environmental Medicine.
The study is one in a long line of reports on possible links between cancer and cell phone use, and one that will not settle question decisively. In 2011, a study for the Institute of Cancer Research found "no convincing evidence of a link" between cellphone use and brain tumors, but did say that long-term health damage was still a possibility. Another study by the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer said that cell phone-emitting radiofrequency electromagnetic fields are "possibly carcinogenic to humans," and said they increased the risk of glioma. A 2011 National Institutes of Health study discovered that cell phone use could change brain activity, which could be sped up after less than an hour of cellphone use, but long-term health risks and detrimental side-effects couldn't be determined. The official word on the NIH website is that "more research is needed."
The new French study looked at 253 cases of glioma and 184 cases of meningioma. When they were compared to a group of healthy people, cell phone use increased the risk of developing both types of brain cancer, especially among phone-heavy jobs like sales. Oddly enough, the study found that if cancer does occur, it's on the opposite side of the brain to the side where the phone is normally being used; previously it was believed the cancer developed on the same side.
Researchers said that one of the main difficulties in finding a possible link is getting an accurate idea of phone use in real life by filtering out other cancer-causing behaviors like cigarette smoking. Rapidly changing cell phone technology was also taken into account. So the answer for now is... there is no answer. At least not one to rest the case.
Cellphones
Rebrand Failure
California
California Republicans who have been trying to rebrand their party as more inclusive and attuned with the issues that Californians care about had hoped this year to offer a candidate for governor who fit that image.
Now, however, the party faces the prospect of a conservative gubernatorial nominee who is on probation for carrying a loaded gun into an airport, is accused of race-baiting and is best known for his opposition to gun control and any relaxation of immigration laws.
While Republicans do not expect to unseat Gov. Jerry Brown in November, tea party darling Tim Donnelly's rise over businessman Neel Kashkari has alarmed party leaders who worry that the assemblyman's candidacy is setting back the rebranding and could hurt other candidates on the ballot.
Donnelly's popularity in public opinion polls ahead of the June 3 primary had already elicited concern from Republicans when he began trying to link Kashkari, who is Indian-American and Hindu, to Islamic Shariah law.
The fight over the party's image comes after several disastrous years of sliding GOP registration, which stands at 28.5 percent of registered voters. Democrats have 43.5 percent, while 21 percent list no party preference.
California
Wristwatch Sells For $1.2M At Auction
Rolex
A rare Rolex watch sold for a whopping $1.2 million at auction this week, making it the most expensive Rolex wristwatch to ever be sold under the gavel, NBC News reports.
The sale of the watch, a 1949 Oyster Perpetual model with a cloisonne enamel dial, had been expected to go for as low as $570,000
The watch, sold by Christie's auction house in Geneva, was designed by artist Marguerite Koch and features a ship sailing on rough seas on the dial. At a cost of $1.2 million, the anonymous buyer might want to consider investing in a Swatch guard (remember those?).
The blog Classic Diver reported that the record-setting Rolex had been "hidden away" for several years.
Rolex
In Memory
H.R. Giger
H.R. Giger, the legendary Swiss artist responsible for designing the horrific biomechanical creatures in "Alien," died at the age of 74 due to injuries sustained from a fall.
Giger was born in Chur, Switzerland, in 1940, to parents that included a father who wanted his son to follow in his footsteps as a pharmacist. Luckily for the art world and filmmakers alike, Giger followed his heart instead and attended the School of Applied Arts in Zurich.
After graduating, Giger created original art pieces and worked as a furniture designer for Andreas Christen. He later quit his day job to concentrate on his art full time. In 1968, Giger created his first alien creature prop for the short film "Swissmade," and began to show more of his paintings in galleries such as The Galerie Bischofsberger and Galerie Stummer. Giger suffered from night terrors, which he said in numerous interviews influenced his trademark biomechanical creatures that mesh humans and machines.
Through his connections with artists Bob Venosa and Salvador Dali, Giger was introduced to director Alexandro Jodorowsky, who commissioned him to design elements of his concepts for the film, "Dune." While Jodorowsky's "Dune" never came to fruition, director Ridley Scott noticed Giger's work on the film concepts, as well as Giger's art book "Necronomicon." The two agreed to collaborate on the sci-fi horror film, "Alien," which earned Giger an Academy Award for Best Achievement in Visual Effects in 1980 for his unique meshing of human, alien, and mechanical elements.
While director James Cameron did not ask Giger to collaborate with him on the sequel "Aliens," Giger did return to his horrific creation thanks to director David Fincher for "Alien 3" with new sketches for the alien beast body shape. Giger's work can also be seen in the movies "Poltergeist II," "Species," "Tokyo: The Last Megalopolis," and "Prometheus."
Giger's unique art style also caught the eye of rock stars, and he found himself designing album covers for the likes of Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Deborah Harry, Danzig, and The Dead Kennedys, to name a few.
In addition to his work with films and fine art, Giger designed and opened the Giger Bar (housed within the Giger Museum at the Chateau St. Germain in Gruyere) which is a work of art in itself, with a floor to ceiling "Alien" biomechanical environment. There's also another Giger Bar in his birthplace of Chur, Switzerland.
While the third Giger Bar in New York and a fourth Giger Bar in Tokyo both closed, Sci-Fi Hotel founder Andy Davies recently spoke with Giger about bringing a new Giger Bar to a yet-to-be-determined city in the United States.
While Giger may have never been fully appreciated by art critics in his own country, in 2013, he was honored by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame in Seattle, along with the likes of David Bowie and J.R.R. Tolkien.
H.R. Giger
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