Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Paul Krugman: The Big Deal (New York Times)
On the day President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law, an exuberant Vice President Biden famously pronounced the reform a "big something deal" - except that he didn't use the word "something." And he was right.
Paul Krugman: Obama and Redistribution (New York Times)
Putting this together, we have a roughly 6 percent hit to the 1 percent, around 9 to the superelite. That's only a partial rollback of these groups' huge gains since 1980, but it's not trivial.
Mark Shields: No Safety in These Numbers (Creators Syndicate)
In 236 years, 659,073 Americans have died fighting for their country. In just the 42 years immediately following the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy - between June of 1968 and the end of 2010 (the last year for which, as they say, official figures are available) - the number of civilians killed in the United States by firearms, according to official records, was 1,260,781.
Peter Fenwick: The Art of Dying Well (YouTube)
"British neuropsychiatrist Peter Fenwick researches how consciousness changes as we approach death. In this TEDx talk, he explores the altered states on the edge of death and explains how to engage in a peaceful and satisfying end to earthly existence."--Disinformation
Lauren Davis: Scifi authors pose half-naked on this genderflipped book cover-for charity (io9)
It's nice to see authors poking a bit of fun at sexist cover conventions while raising money for a good cause.
Lauren Davis: Make sure your cat watches this anti-drug PSA on the dangers of catnip (io9)
Is your cat in danger of developing catnip psychosis? Are they strung out on the 'nip? Chasing the green dragon? Sit your feline friend down in front of 'Catnip: Egress to Oblivion?,' a trippy parody of anti-drug filmstrips, and then have a serious discussion about their catnip habit.
Mike Floorwalker: The 6 Most Hilarious Failures in Music Censorship History (Cracked)
#6. An Album With No Lyrics Earns a "Parental Advisory" Sticker
Red Beard's Revenge Pirate Ship Playhouse (Posh Tots)
$52,000.
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Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Reader Suggestion
Mystery Fruit
Found this response in the mail - it's 6 days old!
Don't know how I missed it, but I did.
Sorry, Carl.
~~~~~~~~~~
Could it be a hedgeapple. By the way they are uneatable.
Carl M in a Pittsburg without an h
Thanks, Carl!
Team Coco
Conan
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny and pleasant.
Inaugural Poet
Richard Blanco
Poet Richard Blanco has delivered an inaugural poem paying homage to the American experience.
Blanco, at age 44 the youngest ever inaugural poet, recited a poem that painted vivid scenes about America and included reflections on his experience growing up as Cuban exile in New York City and Miami.
Blanco was born in Spain but emigrated to the United States with his Cuban exile parents. He was an engineer before he took up poetry. In addition to being the youngest ever inaugural poet, Blanco is the first Hispanic and the first openly gay person to serve in the role.
Blanco has published three books of poetry while maintaining his career as a consulting engineer.
Richard Blanco
Human Sexuality Collection
Cornell University
One might not expect to find VHS covers of pornographic movies or prostitutes' trade cards at the library, but those items are among the racy ephemera Cornell University has been compiling since 1988 as part of its Human Sexuality Collection.
The archive is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, and its goal is to "encourage research on the many important and compelling topics related to sexuality," as well as to impact what people are able to know and think about human sexuality through preserving primary sources, according to its website.
The collection focuses largely on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) history in the United States and the politics of pornography. It includes a wide range of items, from snapshot albums of gay couples in the early 20th century to AIDS education posters of the 1990s and the diaries of prominent gay activists.
Last week, the library announced that it's adding a new bundle to its shelves: the archival materials of feminist author and "sexpert" Susie Bright, which document sexual politics over the past 35 years and include the written history of "On Our Backs," the lesbian sex magazine Bright published in the 1990s.
Cornell University
12 Weirdest Things That Look Like
U.S. Presidents
Can you tell the difference between James Polk and Franklin Pierce? Hmm, how about William McKinley and Calvin Coolidge? Fret not, novice presidential historian -- 200 years of men with powered wigs, bushy facial hair and/or stern smirks can all blur together in the old noggin.
Consider this your opportunity to acquaint yourself with the faces of past U.S. presidents just in time for the inauguration. And to make this whole "learning" thing more fun, we've pinpointed the oddest presidential doppelgangers this side of Pennsylvania Ave.
1. Chicken McNugget and George Washington
View this gallery
U.S. Presidents
Revamping
Billboard
Billboard is undergoing a revamp with the help of its newest Icon.
The magazine will debut a redesign that includes new content on newsstands Tuesday with Prince on the cover. Revamps of its websites are coming later this week, including new chart features.
Prince grants the magazine a rare interview in the reboot issue and will be awarded the Icon Award on May 19 at the Billboard Music Awards. Country singer Tim McGraw has contributed an exclusive track for Billboard's website relaunch.
Along with content upgrades and expansions, the magazine, owned by Prometheus Global Media, will offer an iPad edition with playable charts.
Billboard
Plotted To Protect Pedophile Priests
Los Angeles
Two Catholic Church officials in California plotted to conceal child molestation by priests from law enforcement as late as 1987, the Los Angeles Times reported on Monday, citing newly released internal Church records.
The records show that Los Angeles Archbishop Roger Mahony, who is now retired, and his top adviser on child sex abuse cases, Monsignor Thomas Curry, worked with other Church officials in 1987 to send priests accused of abuse out of state to avoid prosecution, the newspaper said.
Mahony and Curry also tried to keep pedophile priests from confessing to therapists who would be obligated to report the crimes, the newspaper said, citing the records, which were released on Los Angeles Times' website.
Curry even suggested in 1987 they send a pedophile priest to "a lawyer who is also a psychiatrist" to put the priest's "reports under the protection of privilege," the Times reported.
Los Angeles
Putin's Tea Baggers
Russia
Kissing his boyfriend during a protest in front of Russia's parliament earned Pavel Samburov 30 hours of detention and the equivalent of a $16 fine on a charge of "hooliganism." But if a bill that comes up for a first vote later this month becomes law, such a public kiss could be defined as illegal "homosexual propaganda" and bring a fine of up to $16,000.
The legislation being pushed by the Kremlin and the Russian Orthodox Church would make it illegal nationwide to provide minors with information that is defined as "propaganda of sodomy, lesbianism, bisexuality and transgenderism." It includes a ban on holding public events that promote gay rights. St. Petersburg and a number of other Russian cities already have similar laws on their books.
The bill is part of an effort to promote traditional Russian values as opposed to Western liberalism, which the Kremlin and church see as corrupting Russian youth and by extension contributing to a wave of protest against President Vladimir Putin's rule.
Samburov describes the anti-gay bill as part of a Kremlin crackdown on minorities of any kind - political and religious as well as sexual - designed to divert public attention from growing discontent with Putin's rule.
Russia
Fiction Section
Library Prank
A prank note in an Australian library declaring that disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong's books would be moved to the fiction section has gone viral on the Internet, with one commentator declaring: "Hell hath no fury like a librarian".
"All Non-Fiction Lance Armstrong Books, including 'Lance Armstrong - Images of a Champion', 'The Lance Armstrong Performance Program and 'Lance Armstrong: World's Greatest Champion,' will soon be moved to the fiction section," read the sign posted at Sydney's Manly Library on Saturday.
A photograph of the sign posted on the Internet quickly sparked heated debate over whether Armstrong's fight against cancer and motivation of people outweighed his drug cheating in a sport rife with doping.
Manly Library said the printed notice, which was placed in a plastic stand on a bookshelf in the library, was a prank and that an internal review was underway.
"Libraries can't arbitrarily reclassify categories of books, because that depends on the ISBN number that is issued by the National Library," a spokesman at Manly Council, which runs the library, said on Monday.
Library Prank
Settles Michigan Suit
McDonald's
McDonald's and one of its franchise owners agreed to pay $700,000 to members of the Muslim community to settle allegations a Detroit-area restaurant falsely advertised its food as being prepared according to Islamic dietary law.
McDonald's and Finley's Management Co. agreed Friday to the tentative settlement, with that money to be shared by Dearborn Heights resident Ahmed Ahmed, a Detroit health clinic, the Arab American National Museum in Dearborn and lawyers.
Ahmed's attorney, Kassem Dakhlallah, told The Associated Press on Monday that he's "thrilled" with the preliminary deal that's expected to be finalized March 1. McDonald's and Finley's Management deny any liability but say the settlement is in their best interests.
The lawsuit alleged that Ahmed bought a chicken sandwich in September 2011 at a Dearborn McDonald's but found it wasn't halal - meaning it didn't meet Islamic requirements for preparing food. Islam forbids consumption of pork, and God's name must be invoked before an animal providing meat for consumption is slaughtered.
The locations advertise that they exclusively sell halal Chicken McNuggets and McChicken sandwiches and they have to get those products from an approved halal provider, Dakhlallah said. He said there was no evidence of problems on the production side, but he alleges that the Dearborn location on Ford Road sold non-halal products when it ran out of halal.
McDonald's
Physicists Disagree Over Meaning
Quantum Mechanics
"Anyone who claims to understand quantum theory is either lying or crazy," physicist Richard Feynman once said, according to legend.
That situation hasn't changed much in the roughly 90 years since quantum mechanics was first introduced, as evidenced by a new poll, detailed online this month, showing that physicists are still divided over the theory's meaning.
The 16-question poll was given to 33 physicists, philosophers and mathematicians at a conference on "Quantum Physics and the Nature of Reality" in Austria in July 2011. The poll probed the experts' thoughts on fundamental tenets of the theory, such as the randomness of nature and the impact of outside measurements on quantum systems.
Though the pollsters admit the sample size is small and the test not completely scientific, they found a striking divide among the experts on some of the most basic principles of quantum mechanics.
"Nearly 90 years after the theory's development, there is still no consensus in the scientific community regarding the interpretation of the theory's foundational building blocks," the authors of the poll, led by physicist Maximilian Schlosshauer of the University of Portland, wrote in a paper describing the results posted on Jan. 6 on the preprint site arXiv.org. "Our poll is an urgent reminder of this peculiar situation."
Quantum Mechanics
In Memory
Michael Winner
"Death Wish" director Michael Winner, a British filmmaker, restaurant critic and bon vivant, died Monday. He was 77.
Winner's wife, Geraldine, said he died at his London home after an illness.
Winner's 30 movies included three "Death Wish" films starring the late Charles Bronson. Many of his features sit at the schlockier end of the spectrum, but he also worked with Hollywood icons including Marlon Brando, Burt Lancaster, Robert Mitchum and Faye Dunaway.
One of his earliest films was the 1962 nudist feature "Some Like It Cool"; later, he specialized in thrillers and action movies, including "The Mechanic," ''Scorpio" and the violent "Death Wish" series.
Born in London in 1935, Winner was writing a showbiz column for a local newspaper by the time he was 14, and as a student edited the Cambridge University newspaper, Varsity.
After a stint as a film critic, he started his movie-making career on shorts and documentaries. One of his first films was a travelogue called "This is Belgium." Winner said that because Belgium proved too rainy, it was shot largely in East Grinstead, southern England.
His 1960s British films included "West 11," a gritty thriller set in a shabby London neighborhood; "The System," a tale of young men on the prowl in a seaside town; and "I'll Never Forget What's'isname" starring Oliver Reed as a fed-up London adman and Orson Welles as his boss.
Other notable pictures included "The Big Sleep" - a remake of the 1940s film noir - and "Hannibal Brooks," a comedy caper featuring Reed as a prisoner of war who makes a bid for freedom with an elephant from a German zoo.
Winner was best known for "Death Wish," which stars Bronson as a law-abiding citizen who turns vigilante when his wife and daughter are attacked. The 1974 film was criticized for its violence, but was a commercial success in an America fretting about urban violence and a fraying social fabric.
Winner declared it "a pleasant romp" with no moralistic intent and went on to direct two more installments. He also was proud that "Death Wish" featured the film debuts of two future stars - Jeff Goldblum and Denzel Washington, who played "Freak 1" and "Alley Mugger," respectively.
A lover of the high life who collected antiques and rare first editions, Winner had a second career as restaurant critic with the long-running "Winner's Dinners" column in the Sunday Times newspaper. His acerbic verdicts got him barred from some eateries, and his highest praise was to declare a meal "historic."
He also founded and helped fund a campaign to erect a London memorial to police officers killed in the line of duty.
Winner had experienced health problems since getting a bacterial infection from bad oysters in 2007. He wrote his final column in December, but refused to say goodbye forever.
"Who knows, after Christmas I might make a comeback," he wrote. "How many times did Sinatra do it?"
His wife, a former dancer who met Winner in 1957 and married him two years ago, said he was "a wonderful man, brilliant, funny and generous. A light has gone out in my life."
Michael Winner
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