Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Lucy Mangan: why I won't forget Margaret Thatcher in a hurry (Guardian)
'When I started school, there was a textbook per pupil. By the time I left, we were down to one for every two or three.'
Maria Golovnina: "Thatcher death 'party' in London draws hundreds" (Reuters)
Several hundred people turned up for a "party" in central London on Saturday to celebrate the death of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher as a mass protest predicted by some failed to materialize.
"Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead" hits UK chart on Thatcher's death (Reuters)
The song from the 1939 film "The Wizard of Oz" was top of Amazon's most downloaded chart on Wednesday after a social media campaign to promote the upbeat track as a way for detractors to "celebrate" the death of Britain's most divisive postwar leader.
Paul Krugman: The Antisocial Network (New York Times)
Bitcoin's wild ride may not have been the biggest business story of the past few weeks, but it was surely the most entertaining. Over the course of less than two weeks the price of the "digital currency" more than tripled. Then it fell more than 50 percent in a few hours. Suddenly, it felt as if we were back in the dot-com era.
Paul Krugman: How to Beat a Dead Horse (Business Week)
Metaphors, if you can find good ones, are helpful. Sometimes you can mull over an issue for years before the right thing comes to you. "Confidence fairy" has been a good friend to me. That one just came out of the blue in 2010. "Zombie ideas" is not original with me, but it's been very useful.
Henry Rollins: Joe Cole and American Gun Violence (LA Weekly)
On April 10 of this year, a man named Joe Cole would have been 52 years old. On 12/19/91, this man was shot and killed in Venice while being robbed at gunpoint. I was a few feet away. Even though it has been more than 20 years since he was killed, I think of him often.
Carole Cadwalladr: "Emily Watson: 'Sexuality is a big part of who I am'" (Guardian)
Emily Watson's raw performances have made her one of Britain's most spellbinding actors. Now she's playing a woman running for prime minister - against her husband. She talks to Carole Cadwalladr about marriage, sexuality and the joy of viscose blouses.
Kim Willsher: Audrey Tautou: how the French learned to love the star of Amélie (Guardian)
Next month Audrey Tautou will host the opening ceremony of the Cannes Film Festival, an honour only given to a select few. Is she finally overcoming the curse of her most successful film?
"Taylor Family's Christmas Surprise For Adopted Daughter Will Make You Cry (VIDEO)" (Huffington Post)
Some surprises are so good, they're still incredibly moving months -- or even years -- later. This is one of them.
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From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Mostly overcast.
Tops In Library Complaints
''Captain Underpants''
Subversive toilet humor proved more offensive to Americans than bondage and eroticism last year, according to a list of most challenged books in U.S. libraries that saw complaints about "Captain Underpants" outweigh those for "Fifty Shades of Grey."
The American Library Association (ALA) said Dav Pilkey's "Captain Underpants" series for children, that features characters like Professor Poopypants and Wedgie Woman, came top of its 2012 list of books that Americans asked to be removed from libraries because of content they considered inappropriate.
The "Captain Underpants" series of 10 books has appeared on the annual list three times since 2002, but has never previously reached the No.1 spot, the ALA said on Monday.
"Fifty Shades of Grey," the best-selling sadomasochistic tale of college students and a businessmen by British author E.L. James, debuted on the list in fourth place after the erotic trilogy sold 70 million copies around the world in the past two years.
The ALA said that its office for intellectual freedom received a total of 464 reports in 2012 on attempts to remove books from public and school libraries or school curricula. That was an increase from the 326 such attempts recorded in 2011.
''Captain Underpants''
Awarded
Pulitzer Prizes
The winners of this year's Pulitzer Prizes were announced this afternoon, in all 21 categories, meaning that there were no surprise non-winners in the fiction category like last year. Here's the list via Pulitzer's website, where you can also see the finalists.
Journalism
Public Service The Sun Sentinel
Breaking News Reporting The Denver Post staff
Investigative Reporting David Barstow and Alejandra Xanic von Bertrab of The New York Times
Explanatory Reporting The New York Times staff
For the rest - Pulitzer Prizes
New $201M Facility
NPR
NPR is moving to a new $201 million headquarters with all digital equipment in Washington, leaving its analog radio gear behind.
The public radio network began broadcasting Saturday from its new home, nine blocks north of the Capitol in the rapidly gentrifying NoMa neighborhood. NPR is consolidating its 800 Washington-based employees in one massive building after being spread across several sites for years.
The flagship shows "All Things Considered" and "Morning Edition" will migrate to the new facility over the next week. "Weekend Edition" was first to broadcast from the new studios.
According to an NPR fact sheet about the new facility, it was designed to accommodate the network's evolution from a radio broadcaster to a multimedia operation. It includes an open, two-story newsroom where news, music and digital staff work together. Audio is transmitted through a fiber network, and video screens are placed throughout the building. New studios were designed with public viewing areas, and free tours will be offered daily beginning in June.
NPR
Breaks Another YouTube Record
PSY
South Korean pop star PSY has broken another Justin Bieber record on YouTube, this time with new single "Gentleman."
The "Gangnam Style" rapper recorded 18.9 million views Saturday between the video's 5 a.m. release and midnight, besting Bieber's previous first-day record of 8 million views for "Beauty and the Beat."
YouTube can measure only daily usage, so it's unclear how many views the video had in its first full 24 hours. The short film "KONY 2012" holds the overall record for views in single day at 30 million.
PSY knocked off Bieber's "Baby" in overall views last year when "Gangnam Style" surpassed 1 billion views. As of Monday morning, the video had been watched more than 1.5 billion times, nearly doubling "Baby" at 848 million.
PSY
Sentence Upheld
Cameron Douglas
Michael Douglas' son will have to finish serving his nearly 10-year prison sentence after an appeals court Monday sided with a judge who punished him severely after Douglas was caught with drugs in prison.
A three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said nearly doubling the five-year prison term Cameron Douglas originally received to 9½ years was reasonable.
In 2010, Judge Richard Berman gave Douglas a lenient sentence from what otherwise would have been a 10-year mandatory minimum term as Douglas began cooperating with authorities. But his generosity ran out after Douglas was caught repeatedly violating prison rules by arranging to get drugs, including four instances in which he convinced a 33-year-old lawyer he was romantically involved with to smuggle anti-anxiety prescription drugs into prison in her bra. The lawyer entered into a deferred prosecution agreement that enables charges against her to be dropped if she stayed out of trouble for six months.
He also had convinced a girlfriend to smuggle heroin that was hidden in an electric toothbrush to him while he was under house arrest in 2009.
Cameron Douglas
Pushes Launch Date Back
Esquire Network
The Esquire Network won't be launching as soon as expected.
The NBCUniversal rebrand of the G4 Network, which was due to kick off April 22, will now launch in the summer, in order to add more programs to its roster.
The network's previously greenlit original programs include the Ryan Seacrest-produced "How I Rock It," on which NBA All-Star Baron Davis profiling an array of athletes, musicians, celebrities and other personalities; and "Risky Listing," which will explore the "exclusive, intensely competitive world of New York nightlife real estate." Both of those series had previously been slated for summer premieres.
The new venture, the product of a deal between NBCUniversal and Hearst Magazines, plans to plans to continue G4's focus on technology and gaming, while branching out into "entertainment, food, fashion, women, humor, travel, competition, danger and more."
Esquire Network
Closes Sunday
'Breakfast at Tiffany's'
There'll be no more breakfast on Broadway.
Producers of the latest stage adaptation of Truman Capote's classic 1958 story "Breakfast at Tiffany's" said Monday they will close the show after Sunday's matinee.
It will have played 17 preview and 38 regular performances. It joins "The Anarchist" by David Mamet and "The Performers," a play set in the porn industry, with quick exits on Broadway this season.
Starring Emilia Clarke of HBO's "Game of Thrones" as the doomed eccentric party girl Holly Golightly, "Breakfast at Tiffany's" opened to poor reviews and weak box office grosses.
For the week ending April 7, the show managed to take in just $337,621, or 38 percent of its $896,290 potential. The theater was also half full.
'Breakfast at Tiffany's'
The Humble Misogynist
Pope Frankie
The Vatican said Monday that Pope Francis supports the Holy See's crackdown on the largest umbrella group of U.S. nuns, dimming hopes that a Jesuit pope whose emphasis on the poor mirrored the nuns' own social outreach would take a different approach than his predecessor.
The Vatican last year imposed an overhaul of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious after determining the sisters took positions that undermined Catholic teaching on the priesthood and homosexuality while promoting "radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith." Investigators praised the nuns' humanitarian work, but accused them of ignoring critical issues, including fighting abortion.
On Monday, the heads of the conference met with the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Archbishop Gerhard Mueller, who is in charge of the crackdown. It was their first meeting since Mueller was appointed in July.
In a statement, Mueller's office said he told the sisters that he had discussed the matter recently with Francis and that the pope had "reaffirmed the findings of the assessment and the program of reform."
Pope Frankie
Ice Is Melting Faster
Antarctic
The summer ice melt in parts of Antarctica is at its highest level in 1,000 years, Australian and British researchers reported on Monday, adding new evidence of the impact of global warming on sensitive Antarctic glaciers and ice shelves.
Researchers from the Australian National University and the British Antarctic Survey found data taken from an ice core also shows the summer ice melt has been 10 times more intense over the past 50 years compared with 600 years ago.
"It's definitely evidence that the climate and the environment is changing in this part of Antarctica," lead researcher Nerilie Abram said.
Abram and her team drilled a 364-metre (400-yard) deep ice core on James Ross Island, near the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, to measure historical temperatures and compare them with summer ice melt levels in the area.
They found that, while the temperatures have gradually increased by 1.6 degrees Celsius (2.9 degrees Fahrenheit) over 600 years, the rate of ice melting has been most intense over the past 50 years.
Antarctic
In Memory
Frank Bank
Frank Bank, who played Clarence "Lumpy" Rutherford on the classic TV comedy "Leave It to Beaver," died Saturday of undisclosed causes, People magazine reports. Bank turned 71 on Friday.
Bank's former costar Jerry Mathers, who played the titular scamp Theodore "Beaver" Cleaver, reflected on the reported death of his colleague on his Facebook page Saturday."
Bank played Rutherford in both the original series, which ran from 1957 to 1963, and on the reboot "The New Leave It to Beaver," from 1983 to 1989. However, a description of Bank's 1997 autobiography "Call Me Lumpy: My Leave It to Beaver Days and Other Wild Hollywood Life," suggests that his real life might not have exactly mirrored the apple-pie wholesome tone of the sitcom.
Born in Los Angeles, Bank appeared occasionally on television after "Leave it to Beaver," appearing in the 1983 TV movie "High School U.S.A." and the "Match Game/Hollywood Squares Hour."
Frank Bank
In Memory
Charlie Wilson
Former Ohio Democratic Congressman Charlie Wilson has died from complications from a stroke he suffered during a vacation in Florida in February, the Ohio Democratic party said on Monday.
Ohio Democratic Chairman Chris Redfern said Wilson died on Sunday in Florida.
"An outspoken advocate for working people, Charlie never wavered in his service to his constituents or his lifelong pursuit to help improve the lives of others, Redfern said in a statement.
Wilson, born 1943 in Dillonvale, Ohio, was a member of the Ohio Legislature for 10 years in both the state house of representatives (from 1997 to 2004) and the state senate (from 2005 to 2007). He represented the 6th district, a coal-heavy swath of land spanning the southeast border of the state consisting of many small once-industrial towns.
Wilson won a historic write-in campaign for Congress in 2006. After falling short of the necessary number of signatures to appear on the Democratic primary ballot he launched a massive write-in campaign that won him more than 66 percent of the Democratic primary vote. He went on to defeat Republican Chuck Blasdell and replaced Rep. Ted Strickland (D) who ran for governor and won that year. He lost two races to Republicans in 2010 and 2012.
According to a family statement, Wilson, 70 suffered a fatal hemorrhage while he was in recovery at the Cornell Institute for Rehabilitation Medicine in Florida. The statement also said his family was at his side at the time of his death.
Wilson worked as a small businessman and as a member of the United Auto Workers union on the assembly line at the Ford Automotive auto plant in Lorain, Ohio while attending Ohio University in Athens, Ohio.
Wilson is survived by four sons and nine grandchildren.
Charlie Wilson
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