Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Deborah Orr: Don't blame poor children for their poor education - give them good schools (Guardian)
A new report says white working-class children are failing at school, and suggests their attitudes and lack of aspiration are the cause. This sounds like victim blaming to me.
Henry Rollins: Money Talks (LA Weekly)
On the drive back to Los Angeles, it struck me how little I know, and how happy that made me. I would much rather be the student, eager for the next lesson, excited to see where it could take me and what will happen next, than the been-there-done-that type who claims so much is boring, when it is only they who are boring. The only boring thing in the world are people who are bored.
Mark Morford: An inordinate fear of no water (SF Gate)
It seems simple enough, even a little romantic, a little American-dreamy: I'm looking to buy some property.
Alison Flood: New Amazon terms amount to 'assisted suicide' for book industry, experts claim (Guardian)
Report says publishers under heavy pressure to make damaging concessions including control over out-of-print stock.
Alison Flood: Carnegie medal under fire after 'vile and dangerous' Bunker Diary wins (Guardian)
The judges of the UK's top prize for children's literature, the Carnegie medal, have rallied in the face of an extraordinary attack on the winning novel from the Telegraph, which called Kevin Brooks's The Bunker Diary a "uniquely sickening read" which "seems to have won on shock value rather than merit".
Julian Baggini: Ebooks v paper (Financial Times)
Which do our brains prefer? Research is forcing us to rethink how we respond to the written word.
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"Doug's Most Shared Facebook Post" Today
wrote:
also took the day off.
has retired.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
David E Suggests
David
Thanks, Dave!
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
Sunny, warmer, and way too humid.
Pitching A Hissy Over Cochran Win
Right-Wing Radio
Conservative radio hosts are livid. On Tuesday night, their favored candidate in Mississippi's GOP Senate runoff, state Sen. Chris McDaniel, went down to incumbent Thad Cochran-largely thanks to a last-minute appeal to black Democrats.
Democrats were not barred from voting in the Republican primary as long as they did not vote in their own, and with turnout low for the Democratic primary, plenty of voters were ripe for the wooing for the runoff. Cochran's strategy paid off, giving him about 6,300 more votes than his Tea Party challenger and leaving Rush Limbaugh, Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity, and Glenn Beck purple-faced with outrage.
Pigboy (R-Drug-Addled Sex Tourist), known for his delicate, measured approaches to sensitive issues, erupted Wednesday morning on his show: "I wonder what the campaign slogan was in Mississippi the past couple days. 'Uncle Toms for Thad?' 'Cause I thought that the worst thing you could do as an African-American was vote for a Republican. Absolutely worst thing you could do…Insider Republicans in the Senate bought 9 percentage points, 8 or 9 percentage points, from the black Uncle Tom voters in Mississippi. Well, you know what they call Clarence Thomas, Condoleezza Rice. Black Republicans, they call 'em Uncle Toms."
Glenn Beck (R-Cranial-Rectal Inversion), another sensitive soul miraculously attuned to the thoughts and needs of all African-American Mississippi residents, called Cochran's victory "absolutely unbelievable." "I have a question for every black Democrat in Mississippi: What the hell has this 90-year-old fart-a white Republican, the same white Republican that for years the Democrats have been telling you are nothing but old racists-you tell me exactly what Thad Cochran did for you…You either say, 'No, no, no, I recognize how much it sucks to be black and unemployed in America, and so I'm done with the Democrats, I'm going to go over to this new fresh-faced Republican who's provided even better unemployment rates for us."
Laura Ingraham (R-Bottle Blonde) agreed that the number of dark-skinned individuals who exercised their right to vote in a primary election detracted from Cochran's victory, the taste of which "should be quite bitter" in the senator's mouth. "When you have to win as a Republican by playing the race-baiting game that the left routinely plays, I would say that the taste of victory today should be quite bitter in the mouths of the Barber family and Sen. Cochran himself. Do we really think that is the future of the Republican Party? Candidates who brag about how much bacon they'll bring home and who engage in those types of smear tactics with the help of the entrenched left, meaning people on the left who spend their morning, noon, and night smearing good people?"
Right-Wing Radio
Put Out To Pasture
Diane Sawyer
ABC News is making a generational change at the top of its evening newscast, replacing Diane Sawyer with 40-year-old understudy David Muir in an attempt to take a run at longtime ratings leader Brian Williams at NBC's "Nightly News."
ABC also announced Wednesday that George Stephanopoulos will add the role of chief anchor for live news events and election nights to his current jobs as "Good Morning America" co-host and host of the Sunday-morning "This Week" political show.
The exit of Sawyer, 68, is not unexpected. She will remain at ABC News to concentrate on doing prime-time specials and landing newsmaking interviews, where theoretically she'll have less internal competition with Barbara Walters semi-retired and Katie Couric now at Yahoo.
When Muir starts as "World News" top anchor on Sept. 2, it makes that role a men's club at the broadcast networks again, as he joins Williams and Scott Pelley of the "CBS Evening News."
Diane Sawyer
Police Video Shows Fox News Anchor's Arrest
Gregg Jarrett
A police video shows Fox News anchor Gregg Jarrett becoming belligerent and struggling with an officer at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.
The video shows him in a holding cell May 21 after he appeared intoxicated at an airport restaurant.
In the video, Jarrett becomes abusive with medics and a police officer intervenes, pushing him up against a wall then forcing him onto his knees with his face pressed against a bench. The officer orders Jarrett to quit resisting and cuffs his hands behind his back.
The police report says Jarrett had just been released from a treatment facility. A prescription drug was found in his pocket.
Gregg Jarrett
"Kitchen Nightmares" Over
Gordon Ramsay
On Monday, the hot-tempered British chef has made an announcement on his official website: he is putting an end to his TV show.
Ten years, 123 restaurants, 99 cities and 10,197 swear words. Since 2004, the chef, who has received two Michelin stars, has not been idle. An international success, Ramsay's "Kitchen Nightmares" on the UK's Channel 4 has been released in no less than 150 countries and adapted in about 30 others.
If he admits that this was the show that really propelled his TV career, Gordon Ramsay has nonetheless decided to stop making it. "I'm currently filming 4 new episodes, Costa Del Nightmares, for Channel 4 which will be my last," he writes on his website. "I've had a phenomenal 10 years making 123 episodes, 12 seasons, shot across 2 continents, watched by tens of millions of people and sold to over 150 countries. It's been a blast but it's time to call it a day."
But the chef is not stopping television for good. He is notably one of the jury members for "US Masterchef" and he continues to train young cooks in the UK and US versions of "Hell's Kitchen."
Gordon Ramsay
SCOTUS Vanquishes Upstart
Aereo
In a decision that could crimp consumers' hopes to cut the cord from their cable operators, the U.S Supreme Court said Aereo Inc, a video streaming service backed by media mogul Barry Diller, violated copyright law by using tiny antennas to broadcast TV content online to paying subscribers.
Wednesday's 6-3 decision, written by Justice Stephen Breyer, is a victory for traditional broadcasters such as CBS Corp, Comcast Corp's NBC, Walt Disney Co's ABC, and Twenty-First Century Fox Inc's Fox.
Started in 2012 and backed by Diller's IAC/InterActiveCorp, Aereo typically costs about $8 to $12 a month, and lets users stream live broadcasts on mobile devices. Aereo does not pay the broadcasters. The service has operated in 11 U.S. cities, and does not provide subscriber data.
Joining the majority were Chief Justice John Roberts, and Justices Anthony Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.
Justice Antonin "Fat Tony" Scalia, joined by fellow conservative Justices Clarence "Slappy" Thomas and Samuel Alito, dissented, likening Aereo to a "copy shop that provides its patrons with a library card" and lets them decide what to view.
Aereo
Humor Sapped From James Bond Films
John Cleese
As is apparent from Paramount's epic effort to woo Chinese filmgoers and sponsors with Beijing scenes and product placement in "Transformers," the world's most populous nation has become vital to the fortunes of Hollywood studios.
This, however, does not please some of the older members of the film industry, who pine for the days when their words didn't risk being lost in translation. Count Monty Python star John Cleese among them, as he recently told the UK's Radio Times that he thinks that the James Bond movies have lost their trademark humor.
"The big money was coming from Asia, from the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, where the audiences go to watch the action sequences, and that's why in my opinion the action sequences go on for too long, and it's a fundamental flaw," said Cleese, who played gadget guru Q in the two movies preceding the Daniel Craig reboot. "The audiences in Asia are not going for the subtle British humor or the class jokes."
The Craig-starring Bond films have made increasingly large sums in China. "Casino Royale," which hit theaters in 2006, made $11 million in China; 2012's "Skyfall" made nearly $60 million in the country. They have been grittier films, more like the "Bourne" movies than the cheeky Roger Moore-starring Bonds of the 1970s.
John Cleese
Pilot Production Drops
L.A.
The L.A. region's share of pilot production dropped to a historic low in the most recent pilot season, as producers took their business to the Big Apple and other cities offering stronger tax breaks and rebates, according to a new report.
Among 203 pilots produced in the 12 months ended in May, only 44% (90 pilots) were filmed in the L.A. region, down from 52% the previous season and 82% from the 2006-07 pilot season. The rest mainly filmed in New York, Atlanta, and the Canadian cities Vancouver and Toronto, an annual survey released Tuesday by FilmL.A. Inc. concluded.
The decline has been especially sharp in the category of TV dramas - New York surpassed Los Angeles for the first time in filming one-hour TV drama pilots. The Big Apple drew 24 TV drama pilots versus 19 in L.A.
The decline in the number of TV drama pilots is especially significant because dramas are considered the most economically valuable type of TV production, employing large crews and often over a period of several years. A TV drama pilot costs about $6 million to $8 million to produce.
L.A.
Not Granada
Grenada
A Washington couple has sued British Airways, saying the airline ruined their vacation by booking them tickets to the Caribbean island of Grenada instead of Granada, Spain.
Edward Gamson and Lowell Canaday said in their lawsuit they wanted to travel from Washington to London and then to Granada, Spain. Gamson, a dentist who has an office in Maryland, said he explained his travel plans to a British Airways agent who made the reservation.
The lawsuit said the couple received an electronic ticket that referred to "Grenada" but didn't list the country, airport code or flight duration. The couple made it to London, but their connecting flight went to the Caribbean, not Spain. They didn't realize the mistake until they were airborne, the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit said they weren't the only passengers misrouted. When they arrived in the Caribbean, a member of the ground crew told them that "the exact same situation" had happened the week before, the lawsuit said.
Grenada
Travelling 36,000 Years Underground
Chauvet Cave
It is a cave so closely guarded that only three people know the code to the half-tonne reinforced door that seals its entrance, where cameras keep watch 24 hours a day.
But AFP was given a rare chance to step through this gateway into prehistory and into the depths of the Grotte Chauvet in southern France -- home to the earliest known figurative drawings and now a World Heritage site.
For tens of thousands of years, time stopped in the cave nestled deep in a limestone cliff that hangs over the lush, meandering Ardeche River, until it was discovered in 1994 by a group of cave experts.
To reach the site, which is closed to the public, the lucky few allowed access must hike up a path that our Cro-Magnon ancestors once used, not far from a natural stone bridge that straddles an abandoned part of the river.
The paintings are more than twice as old as those in the famed Lascaux caves also in southern France.
Chauvet Cave
Too Much Linked to Premature Death
TV
Adults who watch a lot of TV may be at an increased risk of dying at a relatively young age, a new study suggests.
The study involved more than 13,200 adults in Spain who were all college graduates, and were around 37 years old at the study's start. Participants were followed for about eight years, over which there were 97 deaths.
Those who watched three or more hours of TV a day were twice as likely to die over the study period, compared with those whose watched TV for one hour or less daily, the study found.
In addition, the researchers found that participants' total time spent sitting - including time spent watching TV, using a computer or driving - was also linked to an increased risk of death during the study period.
The findings held even after the researchers took into account factors that could affect a person's risk of death, including age, sex, smoking habits, total daily calorie intake, snacking habits, body mass index, physical activity level and whether participants adhered to a Mediterranean diet, which has been linked to a longer life span.
TV
Ate Plants
Neanderthals
Don't call them brutes. Neanderthals ate their veggies.
Traces of 50,000-year-old poop found at a caveman campground in Spain suggest that modern humans' prehistoric cousins may have had a healthy dose of plants in their diet, researchers say.
The findings, published today (June 25) in the journal PLOS ONE, are based on chemicals lingering in bits of fossilized feces - perhaps the oldest human poop known to science.
Some studies in the past few years have also suggested that Neanderthals weren't just red-meat-gnawing carnivores; instead, they probably had well-rounded diets. Archaeologists found residues of fish scales, bird feathers and starchy plants at a Neanderthal cave in the Rhone Valley in France. Another group of researchers discovered seal, dolphin and fish bones near a Neanderthal hearth on the Rock of Gibraltar, located on the Iberian Peninsula. A 2010 study in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences identified microfossils of plants, such as date palms, legumes and grass seeds, stuck in Neanderthal teeth.
For the new study, researchers looked for telltale biomarkers in bits of fossilized feces (often called coprolites) found in the soil at El Salt, an archaeological site in Alicante, Spain, which Neanderthals occupied at various times between 60,000 and 45,000 years ago.
Neanderthals
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