Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Paul Krugman: Interests, Ideology And Climate (NY Times)
The monetary stakes, it turns out, are not the biggest obstacle to rational action on global warming.
Andrew Tobias: THE PRISONER EXCHANGE "SCANDAL" JOHN McCAIN AND THE JOINT CHIEFS ENDORSED
Did you know that John McCain endorsed the prisoner exchange before he denounced it?
Christopher Riley: The Dolphin Who Loved Me (Guardian)
Like most children, Margaret Howe Lovatt grew up with stories of talking animals. "There was this book that my mother gave to me called Miss Kelly," she remembers with a twinkle in her eye. "It was a story about a cat who could talk and understand humans and it just stuck with me that maybe there is this possibility."
Sam Sacks: "Absent Friends: Lean Years of Plenty" (Open Letters Monthly)
This is the truth so often ignored in the perpetual debate over the ethics of negative reviewing: Book reviews are a genre of literature. Just as you can't dictate to novelists how likable they should make their characters or how happy their endings ought to be, you can't insist on lip-service praise without consigning a reviewer to irrelevancy.
Joseph Epstein: Death Takes No Holiday (Commentary)
People nowadays hope to make it past 80, at which point, honest people will acknowledge, they are playing on house money. If I were to peg out next month at 77, no one would be much surprised or remark that it was untimely.
Jon Henley: Coming soon to a fjord near you … Iceland takes film to its extremities (Guardian)
Our writer joins the film festival braving snow, scree and lava fields to bring European arthouse movies to the shrimping villages of Iceland.
David Bruce: Wise Up! Authors (Athens News)
Howard Jacobson allows his wife, television producer Jenny de Yong, to read his manuscripts before anyone else does. While she is reading them in her study, he will sometimes listen to find out if she is crying or laughing. He said, "There's only one novel ["The Act of Love"] where she's said, 'This could be the end of our marriage, but this book isn't working.' I called the publisher and said they'd have to wait a bit longer for it."
Marching Geese (YouTube)
"Some people herd their geese the old-fashioned way, just by leading them where they want them to go. Others use dogs to herd their flock from behind. Then there are the artistic types, who want to make a spectacle out of it. And we love those types. This parade was seen in the Netherlands." - Neatorama
Weezer: He caught the frisbee! (YouTube)
"Patrick Wilson keeps the beat while catching a Frisbee thrown from the audience during a Weezer concert in St. Augustine, Florida, Friday night. If he had not seen it coming, and reached out at the right time, we may be looking at a picture of a disaster instead of a cool catch. Instagram member _lindsayhxo_ was right there with her camera focused on the right place to catch it." - Neatorama
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Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
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David
Thanks, Dave!
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Reader Suggestion
Thomas Kincade
Check this out on Thomas Kincade……
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
Marine layer morning, sunny afternoon.
Star Trek-Inspired Emblem Revealed
Space Patch
In a mirror universe right now, an alternate Steve Swanson is wearing a space patch bearing the logo of the fictional Klingon Empire.
In this reality, NASA jettisoned the astronaut's "Star Trek" inspired emblem before it could reach space.
Swanson, who currently is commander of the International Space Station, collaborated with his daughter to create an insignia for the outpost's Expedition 40 crew. What he and his fellow astronauts and cosmonauts ultimately launched with to the space station was a patch depicting the "past, present, and future of human space exploration."
"He wanted something that was kind of badass," revealed Mary Swanson, Steve's wife, in a call with collectSPACE, "and Klingons are kind of badass."
Steve and Caroline Swanson's original idea for the patch derived its shape and trefoil logo from an emblem created for the Klingon "Brotherhood of the Sword," as seen on the 1990's television series "Star Trek: The Next Generation."
Space Patch
'Unofficial England Football Anthem'
Monty Python
Monty Python have recorded a new verse for their 1979 song "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life," transforming it into a sarcastic theme song for England's soccer team a few days before the beginning of the 2014 FIFA World Cup.
According to The Telegraph, the tune now features a line that predicts a loss in the team's upcoming game against Brazil: "When you're in the World Cup, and all your hopes are up, and everybody wants your team to win/ Then they go and let you down, and come slinking back to town/ It's time for this daft song to begin." Vocalist Eric Idle even sings, "Cheer up, next time," after the chorus. New cover art for the single art shows each of the six members of Monty Python with improbably wide smiles atop the bodies of foosball players.
The song originated in the troupe's religious spoof movie Life of Brian, and is sung by Idle (who wrote the song) as his character is crucified next to the film's Christ-like titular character Brian Cohen. The comedy group's YouTube page claims that the song has found new popularity as a football chant by fans of soccer team Sheffield Wednesday in the early Nineties. In 2005, a poll revealed that it is the third most popular "funeral song" in Great Britain, according to the BBC, with Britons requesting it be played at their final sendoff.
As they did with "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life," the surviving members of Monty Python will revisit and update bits and sketches from their iconic career at a run of London reunion gigs, beginning July 1st. They've dubbed their residency "Monty Python Live (Mostly)," with the tag line "One Down, Five to Go," as a nod of sorts to Graham Chapman, who died in 1989. The last reunion show will be broadcast in movie theaters around the world on July 20th.
Monty Python
Judge Rules
Casey Kasem
A judge ruled Monday that Casey Kasem should be fed, hydrated and medicated while a court-appointed attorney evaluates the health of the ailing radio personality after his daughter moved to implement end of life measures.
Kasem, who has dementia, was in critical condition in a Washington state hospital.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Daniel S. Murphy ruled that Casey Kasem should receive the treatments while an attorney appointed by the judge meets with Kasem and his doctors.
Kerri Kasem decided to begin end-of-life measures after doctors determined that feeding and hydrating the celebrity had become increasingly painful, attorney Troy Martin said in court. The judge's ruling is likely to cause the former "American Top 40" host more pain, he said.
Despite the family acrimony, Murphy said Kerri and Jean Kasem seemed to be doing what was best for Casey Kasem.
Casey Kasem
Postpones Some U.S. Tour Dates
Paul McCartney
Paul McCartney is rescheduling U.S. tour dates as he continues to recover from a virus he received treatment for last month.
The former Beatles singer announced Monday tour stops scheduled for mid-June will be postponed to October. He was supposed to kick off the U.S. leg of his tour Saturday. Instead his first show will be July 5 in Albany, New York.
McCartney says he's taking his doctor's advice and will take more time to rest. Last month he cancelled his "Out There Japan Tour 2014" because of his illness.
U.S. tickets for the seven original June dates will be honored at the new dates. The tour wraps up Oct. 28 in Louisville, Kentucky.
Paul McCartney
'Coveted Status'
George Will
George Will (R-Misogynist), an occasionally controversial opinion writer for the Washington Post, decided to tackle the epidemic of campus sexual assault, and it did not go well. Will starts off his latest column claiming that colleges working to fight sexual assault are breeding an environment that makes "victimhood a coveted status that confers privileges" to students, to give you some sense of where this is going. From there, he addresses the "supposed campus epidemic of rape," and how he thinks it's all a bunch of hooey.
The reaction to Will's column was swift and cutting. "Oh good, we finally get to get rid of George Will," said one person, hoping the Post may dump Will for implying students should aspire to be sexually assaulted. "George Will writes about sexual assault on campus and it goes as well as you might expect," said Politico deputy editor Blake Hounshell. "Wow. Clearly, George Will has never been sexually assaulted," added columnist Ann Friedman. The Huffington Post's Paul Blumenthal took the historical route: "George Will: Blue jeans are evil and should be stopped, rape not such a big deal."
Will blames the sexual assault hullabaloo on faulty math, dangerous progressivism, and girls who drink too much, among other things. It's never the boy's fault, especially in the anecdote he chose, in which a girl's sometimes-boyfriend has sex with her after she repeatedly says no. Shortly after, Will puts sexual assault inside scare quotes.
George Will
Shady Anti-Campaign
Net Neutrality
You won't believe this but Concerned Citizens United For A Free Time Warner Cable doesn't have as much grassroots support as the cable industry would like you to think. Vice reports that many of the nonprofit community groups who had signed on in support of an anti-net neutrality campaign now say they were tricked into joining based on false pretenses.
Vice says that shady advocacy group Broadband for America, which received a $2 million donation from the National Cable and Telecom Association (NCTA), has apparently duped a wide array of groups into supporting its anti-net neutrality policy, including the Texas Organization of Rural & Community Hospitals, the Ohio League of Conservation Voters and a non-political military radio program called TalkingWithHeroes.com.
All three of these organizations tell Vice that they haven't agreed to any public policy stances when it comes to net neutrality and the head of the Ohio League of Conservation Voters says that he's never even heard of Broadband for America before and he wants his organization's support for its positions removed. Broadband for America hasn't yet commented on these latest revelations but it's hard to imagine the group saying anything that could possibly justify using several nonprofit groups' names to support its positions when those same groups say that they never agreed to such support.
Net Neutrality
Group Demands DOJ Records
Dinesh D'Souza
Judicial Watch, a nonprofit group that rose to prominence after suing the Clinton administration about 18 times in the 1990s, has demanded that the U.S. government turn over all records pertaining to Dinesh D'Souza's movie 2016: Obama's America as well as his upcoming film, America, hoping to discover whether the conservative filmmaker was targeted by federal agents for retribution.
If Judicial Watch does not get what it seeks in about 30 days, it will sue the U.S. government, said the organization's president, Tom Fitton.
2016 was released just ahead of the presidential election two years ago and it portrayed President Barack Obama in a negative light. In January, D'Souza was arrested for making illegal campaign contributions to Wendy Long, who ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate, and several notable people have speculated the arrest was politically motivated, including attorney Alan Dershowitz and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Born In Canada). Last month, D'Souza pleaded guilty to making illegal campaign contributions and in exchange prosecutors are expected to drop the more serious charges of making statements to the Federal Election Commission. He'll be sentenced in about three months and could face more than a year in prison.
Judicial Watch not only filed a Freedom of Information Act request for all communications between employees of the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York and any and all third parties, but it is also preparing more FOIA requests aimed at the DOJ and the FBI.
Dinesh D'Souza
PM Vows To Resume Commercial Whale Hunt
Japan
Japan's prime minister told parliament Monday he would boost his efforts toward restarting commercial whaling, despite a top UN court's order that Tokyo must stop killing whales in the Antarctic.
Shinzo Abe's comments put him firmly on a collision course with anti-whaling groups, who had hoped the ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) would herald the beginning of the end for the mammal hunt.
"I want to aim for the resumption of commercial whaling by conducting whaling research in order to obtain scientific data indispensable for the management of whale resources," Abe told a parliamentary commission.
Abe said that in contrast to the foreign perception that whaling communities mercilessly exploit the giant mammals, whaling towns appreciate the meat and show respect to the creatures with religious services at the end of every hunting season.
Japan
To Stop Snarking Verizon
Netflix
Netflix will ease up on a month-long finger-pointing campaign that blamed Verizon and other Internet service providers for problems with its video subscription service.
Netflix is feuding with Internet search providers such as Verizon and Comcast, saying they aren't doing enough to deliver the content that their subscribers want. In many cases, subscribers to high-speed Internet services are trying to stream Netflix videos, which generate about one-third of online traffic in the U.S. during evening hours.
The inadequacies of the Internet services often caused glitches in online video streams, according to Netflix. To drive that point home to its users, Netflix has been sending notices to some subscribers that assert congestion on networks operated by Verizon and other Internet service providers is hurting video quality.
But Verizon, Comcast and others trace the video problems to the way that Netflix has chosen to deliver some of its content through intermediaries, a theory that Netflix ridiculed again Monday.
Blaming Netflix for the network congestion "is like blaming drivers on a bridge for traffic jams when you're the one who decided to leave three lanes closed during rush hour," Netflix general counsel David Hyman wrote in a Monday letter to his counterpart at Verizon. He said that Verizon had misinterpreted Netflix's efforts to inform subscribers when an Internet service's network is becoming clogged.
Netflix
Cancelled By A&E
The Glades
Talk about a lousy (non-)wedding gift: Just days after The Glades scored season-high ratings with its Season 4 finale, A&E has officially cancelled the Florida-based procedural.
The series on Monday night wrapped up its fourth season with an audience of 3.4 million total viewers, with 1.1 mil landing in the 18-49 sweet spot - also marking all-time highs for a finale.
Sadly, that season-ender also left groom-to-be Jim's life in flux, shot as he was by an unseen assailant.
On Thursday, A&E's other Monday-night drama, Longmire, took a big step toward seeming a Season 2 pick-up when exec producer John Coveny claimed as much on Twitter - though the cabler has yet to confirm the good news.
'The Glades'
'Love Lock'-Laden Grill Collapses On Bridge
Paris
The Pont des Arts footbridge over the Seine in central Paris was closed for a few hours on Sunday after a metal grill laden with padlocks left by amorous couples collapsed onto the walkway.
Padlocks began appearing on bridges in Paris and other European cities more than five years ago left by people seeking to symbolize their enduring love - often inscribed with couples' names. Lovers typically throw the keys into the river.
Nobody was hurt by the "love lock" incident, a city official told French media on Monday, adding that the bridge had reopened and the two grills across a 2.4 meter stretch of the bridge replaced temporarily by wooden panels.
Paris authorities, who inspect and replace panels twisted or made unsafe by the weight of the locks, have faced calls to clamp down on the practice on aesthetic grounds. But they have been reluctant to take stiffer measures for fear of hurting the city's tourist industry and its worldwide reputation as a city of love.
Paris
In Memory
Peter Glaser
Peter Glaser, a space pioneer who introduced the idea of using satellites to beam solar energy from space down to Earth, has died at the age of 90.
Over the decades, the novel technology Glaser envisioned has been known by many names - space-based solar power
Glaser was born in Czechoslovakia in 1923 and came to the United States in 1948. His contributions to space science and technology were not limited to the solar-power satellite concept; he also worked on NASA's Apollo moon missions and headed an experiment that flew aboard the space shuttle Columbia in 1986.
In July 1971, while working for the consulting firm Arthur D. Little, Inc. in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Glaser filed for a U.S. patent for his "Method and Apparatus for Converting Solar Radiation to Electrical Power."
Glaser envisioned harvesting solar radiation in space using satellites
Prior to his notoriety as "father of the solar-power satellite
Glaser also was responsible for the Lunar Heat Flow Probes and the Lunar Gravimeter used in the Apollo program.
In 1986, an experiment designed by Glaser was also flown aboard NASA's space shuttle Columbia to investigate gravitational effects on human blood cells.
Peter Glaser
In Memory
Rik Mayall
Rik Mayall, one of a generation of performers that injected post-punk energy into British comedy, has died. He was 56.
In the 1980s Mayall was part of the Comic Strip, a hugely influential group of alternative young comics that included Dawn French, Jennifer Saunders and Mayall's writing and performing partner, Adrian Edmondson.
He was best known for co-writing and performing in "The Young Ones," a sitcom about slovenly students that was much loved by those it satirized.
On television he memorably played Conservative politician Alan B'stard in the sitcom "The New Statesman" and lecherous Lord Flashheart in comedy classic "Blackadder."
He and Edmondson also created and starred in "Bottom," a surreally violent slapstick series about two unemployed slobs.
Film appearances included the title role in 1991 fantasy "Drop Dead Fred" - which gained him a U.S. cult following - and 1999 British comedy "Guest House Paradiso."
The cause of death was not immediately disclosed. London's Metropolitan Police force said officers had been called to the house by the ambulance service on Monday, but that the death was not believed to be suspicious.
Rik Mayall
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