Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Mark Morford: Burning Man is so very wrong (SF Gate)
Here's what you need to know about Burning Man in this fine year of our unchecked chaos, 2014: Nothing.
Bill Bradley: Stephen Colbert Thanks Racism For His Inherent Distrust Of Barack Obama
Stephen Colbert doesn't blame racism for John Boehner suing Barack Obama; he thanks it. Nearly all United States presidents have issued executive orders, but now Republicans are attempting to sue President Obama over his use of the power when it comes to Obamacare. In his first show back from break, Colbert expressed support for Boehner's lawsuit, claiming executive orders have always been wrong. It just took his inherent distrust of Obama and black people to finally allow him to see it.
George Dvorsky: Doctors Say Schools Should Start Later In The Day (io9)
The American Academy of Pediatrics has issued its strongest statement yet in favor of delaying the start times of schools attended by adolescents to 8:30 AM or later. Currently, only 15% of schools meet this requirement.
Stuart Heritage: How to dodge the ice bucket challenge (Guardian)
It finally happened. On Saturday afternoon, at two minutes to two - just when I'd begun to convince myself that the whole sorry affair had reached a point of critical mass and was about to implode like some sort of unsustainably enormous Red Giant - I was nominated for the ALS ice bucket challenge. And I was furious.
Interview by Andrew Dickson: "Jacqueline Wilson: why I love fairy paintings" (Guardian)
'Some of them look like opium dreams, which perhaps they were.'
David Bruce: Wise Up! Violence Against Women (Athens News)
In June 2011, New York City comedian and writer Kate Spencer was on the R train when a troll stroked her thigh as she walked past him. She wrote in her Tumblr blog, "Without thinking I turned around and hit him as hard as I possibly could. I didn't even stop walking, nor did I say anything. I did turn around to look at him as I hit him, and his face was one of shock but not of surprise. He knew why I had hit him; he just couldn't believe he hadn't gotten away with it." She also wrote that she has been harassed so many times since adolescence that she has lost count.
The Taser Photoshoot Original (YouTube)
Photographer Patrick Hall films people's reactions as they get tased with a handheld stun gun.
"STAR WARS Medley (Harp Twins electric) Camille and Kennerly" (YouTube)
"This is a video series I can only imagine exists because some geek guy found a genie in a bottle who would grant him one wish. Beautiful blond twins Camille and Kennerly play twin electric harps, while dressed in various costumes. Here they play an entertaining Star Wars medley. Previously they've done Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings, and rock anthems like Crazy Train and Sweet Child o' Mine." - Neatorama
David Bruce's Amazon Author Page
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David Bruce has approximately 50 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
wrote:
took the day off.
has retired.
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.
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
Back to way-too-warm weather.
Did Tony Die?
The Sopranos
The Sopranos has been celebrated for its ambiguous series finale, which left the fate of mob boss Tony Soprano unknown. But now creator David Chase has taken all of the mystery out of the revolutionary episode.
When Chase was asked if Tony's dead in an interview with Vox, he begrudgingly responded, "No. No he isn't." Other than mentioning that the infamous cut to black scene was inspired by Edgar Allen Poe's poem, "Dream Within a Dream," that's all the information Chase divulged about Tony's fate.
Though it must have been frustrating for Chase to only be asked this simple question rather than about many of the more interesting aspects of The Sopranos for years on end, we're glad he didn't go into more detail and wish he'd maintained his oath of silence completely. Ambiguity in television is OK and The Sopranos was the poster child for this type of destabilizing storytelling.
However, maybe some good will come of Chase's confession and David Lynch will be inspired to finally reveal exactly what happened to Cooper in Twin Peaks.
The Sopranos
Super PAC Attack
Jeanne Shaheen
A conservative super PAC was forced Wednesday to edit a negative ad against Sen. Jeanne Shaheen after the New Hampshire Democrat's attorneys flagged inaccuracies in the spot with the broadcaster.
Ending Spending Action Fund claimed in ads that "Shaheen's wealth has surged while in public office." Her financial disclosure forms filed with the Senate show the opposite, with her personal wealth dropping by at least $562,000 and perhaps as much as $1 million.
The anti-spending group's 30- and 60-second ads were airing on Boston's NBC affiliate, WHDH. Boston's media market covers the population-heavy southern tier of New Hampshire and campaigns often buy airtime on those stations.
Ending Spending Action Fund re-cut the ad, which also blames Shaheen for higher gas prices and more taxes, and said it planned to air the new version more frequently.
Jeanne Shaheen
Mark Twain Prize for American Humor
Leno
Jimmy Fallon will lead top comedians in saluting his "Tonight Show" predecessor Jay Leno with the nation's top humour prize in October at the Kennedy Center in Washington.
The performing arts centre announced Wednesday that Fallon will join Chelsea Handler, Jerry Seinfeld, Wanda Sykes, Betty White, Kevin Eubanks and others in honouring Leno with the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.
Leno will receive the prize during a performance by his fellow comedians on Oct. 19 in Washington. The show will be broadcast nationally Nov. 23 on PBS stations.
Leno
Suspends Producer After Blue Ivy Joke
BET
BET has suspended a producer after a joke about Beyonce and Jay Z's daughter that aired Monday on the network's music video countdown show, "106 & Park."
A source at BET, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the person was not allowed to discuss the matter publicly, said the producer was suspended after a remark about 2-year-old Blue Ivy's hair.
On Monday's show during a segment about Blue Ivy's hypothetical thoughts during Sunday's MTV Video Music Awards, guest host Karrueche Tran said: "I really did wake up like this, because my parents never comb my hair." Blue Ivy joined her mother onstage at the VMAs.
Tran, who has dated singer Chris Brown on and off, tweeted Tuesday that she did not write the joke. She wrote: "Now y'all know I LOVE me some Beyonce and Blue Ivy!"
BET
Former Iowa Republican Official Concealed Payments
Ron Paul
A former Iowa state senator who abandoned then-presidential candidate Michele Bachmann to endorse Ron Paul a week before the 2012 Iowa caucuses has pleaded guilty to "concealing payments" from Paul's campaign in exchange for his support, the Department of Justice announced Wednesday.
In December 2011, state senator Kent Sorenson, then the Iowa chairman for Bachmann's campaign, made a surprise announcement that he had switched his endorsement to Paul. At the time, Sorenson said he made the decision based on his support for Paul's policies, but this week he admitted to accepting tens of thousands of dollars from the Paul campaign as part of the deal. According to a DOJ release, "from October to December 2011, he met and secretly negotiated with a second political campaign to switch his support to that second campaign in exchange for concealed payments that amounted to $73,000."
The payments were delivered in $8,000 installments, which were "concealed by transmitting them to a film production company, then through a second company, and finally to Sorenson and his spouse," the DOJ statement read.
The consequences for those involved with Paul's campaign are unclear. Jesse Benton, a Paul campaign spokesman at the time, did not return a request for comment. Benton is currently the campaign manager for Kentucky Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell, who is running for re-election.
Sorenson resigned from his office in 2013 amid allegations that he had also taken illegal contributions from a political action committee aligned with Bachmann.
Ron Paul
Discovery Channel Cancels
'Sons of Guns'
The Discovery Channel has cancelled reality TV star Will Hayden's popular "Sons of Guns" show after his arrest on an aggravated rape charge.
The East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff's Office says Hayden was arrested Tuesday on a charge accusing him of raping a child. His bond was set at $250,000. He was already facing child molestation and aggravated crime against nature charges stemming from his Aug. 9 arrest.
Discovery Channel spokeswoman Laurie Goldberg said in an emailed statement Wednesday that production of the show was halted and the series cancelled due to "the serious and horrific nature of the charges" against Hayden.
The show was about Hayden, his adult daughter and their company, Red Jacket Firearms.
'Sons of Guns'
Omaha Police 'Friendly Fire'
'Cops'
Police officers who opened fire while disrupting a robbery at a fast-food restaurant in Omaha killed a crew member with the TV show "Cops" as well as the suspect, who was armed with a pellet gun that they thought was a real handgun, authorities said Wednesday.
The suspect fired from the pellet gun before officers returned fire, Police Chief Todd Schmaderer said at a news conference. He said witnesses and officers thought the robbery suspect's Airsoft handgun looked and sounded real, but discovered later that it fires only plastic pellets.
The suspect, whom police identified as identified as 32-year-old Cortez Washington, was struck by the officers' gunfire, but fled outside of the restaurant before collapsing. Officers continued firing on the suspect as he exited the restaurant, and that was when the "Cops" crew member, 38-year-old Bryce Dion, was also struck, said Schamaderer.
Dion was wearing a bulletproof vest, but a single bullet that hit his arm "slipped into a gap in the vest" and went into his chest, Schmaderer said.
Schmaderer said video captured by the cameraman who was with Dion shows the chaotic situation in the restaurant. Police released still shots from the video showing a hooded and masked person pointing what looks like a gun at police. Schmaderer said police would not release the full video, but that it will be part of the grand jury investigation into the shooting.
'Cops'
Payments Investigated
DEA
Hundreds of thousands of dollars in alleged payments by Drug Enforcement Administration personnel to an Amtrak employee are being investigated by the Justice Department inspector general's office.
The announcement by Jay Lerner, a spokesman for the IG's office, follows the disclosure by Amtrak's inspector general that DEA paid an Amtrak secretary $854,460 over nearly 20 years to obtain confidential information about train passengers that the drug-fighting agency could have lawfully obtained for free through a law enforcement network.
The Amtrak IG's report says that under a joint drug enforcement task force that includes the DEA and Amtrak's own police agency, the task force can obtain Amtrak confidential passenger reservation information at no cost.
Under an agreement, Amtrak police would receive a share of any money seized as a result of such drug task force investigations. Amtrak's inspector general concluded that the DEA's purchase of the passenger information deprived the Amtrak Police Department of money it would have received from resulting drug arrests.
Amtrak's inspector general said the secretary provided the passenger information without seeking approval from Amtrak management or police, but Amtrak's own corporate privacy policy expressly allows it to sell or share personal information about its customers and passengers with contractors or a category of others it describes as "certain trustworthy business partners."
DEA
Court Overturns Hate Crime Convictions
Amish
A federal appeals court in Ohio on Wednesday overturned the hate crime convictions of an Amish sect leader and 15 of his followers in beard- and hair-cutting attacks on fellow members of their religious faith.
The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that jurors in the 2012 case received incorrect instructions on how to consider the role of religion in the attacks.
Prosecutors contended the crimes were motivated by religious disputes between Samuel Mullet Sr., leader of a Bergholz, Ohio, sect, and other Amish religious leaders who had accepted into their communities people Mullet had excommunicated from his.
The majority of the three-judge panel found that "considerable evidence supported the defendants' theory that interpersonal and intra-family agreements, not the victims' religious beliefs, sparked the attacks."
Certain non-hate crime charges, including destruction of evidence and making false statements, were not appealed and therefore stand.
Amish
Aide Admits Stealing
Jasper Johns
A former assistant to renowned American contemporary artist Jasper Johns pleaded guilty on Wednesday to selling nearly two dozen of his works without Johns' knowledge.
James Meyer, 52, pleaded guilty to interstate transportation of stolen property in Manhattan federal court before U.S. District Judge J. Paul Oetken, just over a year after his indictment.
Meyer worked as Johns' studio assistant for more than 25 years. Between 2006 and 2012, prosecutors said, Meyer stole 22 works of art that Johns had not yet completed from his Connecticut studio and brought them to a Manhattan art gallery for sale, claiming Johns had given the art to him as a gift.
In an effort to conceal the fraud, Meyer created fake notarized certifications that purported to document the gift and false inventory numbers for the artwork, which was eventually sold for a total of $6.5 million, prosecutors said. Meyer collected $3.4 million in proceeds, according to the indictment.
Meyer faces up to four years in prison when he is sentenced in December. He also agreed to forfeit nearly $4 million to the government.
Jasper Johns
Twin Disasters Spark Crew Resignations
Malaysia Airlines
Nearly 200 cabin crew have resigned from Malaysia Airlines following the two deadly tragedies which have hit the carrier this year, it said Tuesday, and some reportedly cited fears for their safety.
The flag carrier, which prior to this year had a good safety record, has been in the spotlight in the past six months following the disappearance of flight MH370 on March 8 and the shooting down of MH17 on July 17 over rebel-held eastern Ukraine.
The ailing airline is in the midst of being taken private by sovereign wealth fund Khazanah Nasional as part of an expected major overhaul.
Khazanah is expected this week to announce a series of restructuring measures including job cuts and axing of unprofitable international routes.
Malaysia Airlines
In Memory
William Greaves
William Greaves, the Emmy-award winning co-host and executive producer of a groundbreaking television news program and a prolific filmmaker whose subjects ranged from Muhammad Ali to the Harlem Renaissance to the black middle class, has died at age 87.
A minister's son born in New York City, Greaves had a diverse background that included drawing, acting, dance and engineering. He leaves behind a vast film archive of black art and culture.
Greaves made hundreds of movies, and in the 1960s, he served as co-host and executive producer of "Black Journal," among the first TV news programs designed for a black audience. "Black Journal" won an Emmy in 1970 for excellence in public affairs.
He studied engineering at City College of New York, but dropped out to pursue a career in the performing arts. He joined the American Negro Theatre, where fellow members included Harry Belafonte and Sidney Poitier, and was briefly part of The Actors Studio, with Marlon Brando among his peers.
Greaves appeared in "Lost in the Stars," "Lost Boundaries" and other movies, but he became frustrated with the roles offered black performers, especially after being asked to play a porter in a Broadway revival of "The Twentieth Century." He moved to Canada and immersed himself in documentary-making as part of the National Film Board of Canada.
The rise of the civil rights movement opened up chances for work in the United States, and in the early '60s, he returned and formed William Greaves Productions. His notable documentaries included "Still a Brother: Inside the Black Middle Class" and "From These Roots," about the Harlem Renaissance.
In 1966, at the request of the United States Information Agency, he travelled to Senegal and filmed the First World Festival of Negro Arts, which featured Duke Ellington and Langston Hughes, among others. He also made the experimental "Symbiopyschotaxiplasm: Take One," what he called a "cosmic comedy" about a director (Greaves) facing a rebellion from his cast and crew. A cult favourite admired by Steven Soderbergh, "Symbiopyschotaxiplasm" was filmed in the late 1960s, but wasn't released until 2005.
One of Greaves' most widely seen productions was "Ali, the Fighter," a documentary about the 1971 championship fight between Ali and Joe Frazier, a 15-round bout won by Frazier. In a 1991 interview with The Associated Press, Greaves recalled that his biggest challenge was getting the boxers to forget he was there.
In 1968, Greaves was selected to co-host "Black Journal," a news magazine developed by National Educational Television that premiered two months after the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. The show was a mix of spot news, investigative reporting and satire billed as being by, for and about blacks, with segments including a Harvard University commencement speech by King's widow, Coretta Scott King, and a feature about the black horse jockey Ronnie Tanner.
In 1959, Greaves married Louise Archambault, who collaborated on many of his films. They had three children.
William Greaves
In Memory
Stephen Lee
Stephen Lee, a busy character actor for nearly four decades, died Aug. 14 in his Los Angeles apartment from a heart attack, according to his friend, actress Lisa Pescia. He was 58.
Lee played an inquisitive contractor who's installing new kitchen cabinets in Jerry's apartment in a 1997 episode of NBC's Seinfeld and appeared as Tony B., a mobster and police informant, on several installments of CBS' Nash Bridges.
He portrayed Tom Arnold in a 1994 NBC telefilm, Roseanne and Tom: Behind the Scenes. And in the 1987 Ritchie Valens biopic La Bamba, he played the Big Bopper.
A native of New Jersey, Lee also had small roles in such films as WarGames (1983), RoboCop 2 (1990), The Negotiator (1998) and Burlesque (2010).
Lee received his first onscreen credit for a 1981 episode of Hart to Hart and went on to appear on such TV shows as Scarecrow and Mrs. King, Who's the Boss?, Hill Street Blues, Valerie, Family Ties, Herman's Head, Roseanne, Quantum Leap, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Everybody Loves Raymond, Cybill, Murder One, The Drew Carey Show, Grey's Anatomy, NCIS and Bones.
He had recurring roles on the short-lived series Gung Ho, based on the Michael Keaton movie, and City, a comedy created by Paul Haggis that starred Valerie Harper.
Stephen Lee
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