Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Nancy Pelosi: The truth about Medicare (CNN)
The first presidential debate highlighted a clear choice on Medicare: President Obama's vision, guaranteeing the fundamental promise of Medicare for seniors today and into the future, versus Mitt Romney's blueprint for the eventual destruction of Medicare as we know it. … it is important to make clear that either the Republican nominee does not know the facts or was willing to deceive the American people with false claims.
Daniel A. Helminiak, "My Take: What the Bible really says about homosexuality" (CNN)
The Bible itself is lucid on the sin of Sodom: pride, lack of concern for the poor and needy (Ezekiel 16:48-49); hatred of strangers and cruelty to guests (Wisdom 19:13); arrogance (Sirach/Ecclesiaticus 16:8); evildoing, injustice, oppression of the widow and orphan (Isaiah 1:17); adultery (in those days, the use of another man's property), and lying (Jeremiah 23:12).
Roger Ebert: Stick to My Knitting
The notion for this blog has been rattling about on my to-write list for months. It many ways it should not need to be written. All the same, again today another of Those Comments came in: "Just stick to movie reviews. you have no idea of what you're talking about. You love socialism? Move to Europe."
Marc Dion: Mitt Romney's wife doesn't understand me (Creators Syndicate)
See, my wife works, and we need - really need - the money she makes. Which, among those of us who do not own dancing horses, is not uncommon. If I get up at a party and say something stupid about equal pay for equal work, my wife gets to say, "How'd you like it if I didn't make the money I make?" Which is not adoring or supportive, but which is proud and free.
Erin Grace: Omaha schoolgirl dresses as a different historical figure each day (Omaha World Herald)
This is how Stella Ehrhart, age 8, decides what to wear for school. She opens her closet. She opens her book, "100 Most Important Women of the 20th Century." And she opens her mind. Voilà, she is Billie Holiday, in a black dress with a red tissue-paper flower tucked into her strawberry-blond hair. ... Poof, she is Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, wearing a hat her aunt got her in Vietnam. The Dundee Elementary School third-grader comes to school dressed as a different historical figure or character - Every. Single. Day.
Scholarly Journal Agrees to Publish Computer-Generated Article Filled with Gibberish
Marcie Rathke of the University of Southern North Dakota at Hoople submitted a manuscript to the peer-reviewed journal "Advances in Pure Mathematics." It was a long string of fake mathematical reasoning created with a computer program: … Nonetheless, the editors of "Advances in Pure Mathematics," after receiving favorable reports from reviewers, agreed to publish Rathke's manuscript.
Eddie Deezen: Jimmy Nicol, the Beatles Drummer for Ten Days (Neatorama)
Jimmy Nicol received a phone call from out of the blue, midday on June 3, 1964. "I was having a bit of a lie down after lunch when the phone rang," said Jimmy. After what must have been the most surreal phone call of his life, Jimmy Nicol drove to the Beatles' office, rehearsed quickly with the boys, and was packed and ready to leave for Australia.
Taylor Swift: 'I want to believe in pretty lies' (Guardian)
Taylor Swift's country-tinged pop narratives of love and romance have made her a superstar. She talks to Alex Macpherson about her new album Red, fairytales - and her fear that the magic won't last.
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David Bruce's Blog
David Bruce has 42 Kindle books on Amazon.com with 250 anecdotes in each book. Each book is $1, so for $42 you can buy 10,500 anecdotes. Search for "Funniest People," "Coolest People, "Most Interesting People," "Kindest People," "Religious Anecdotes," "Maximum Cool," and "Resist Psychic Death."
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Michelle in AZ
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
BadtotheboneBob
Top 10 Haunted Lighthouses
Top 10 Haunted Lighthouses - Coastal Living
#1 on the list is...
Owls Head Light, Maine... one that I know more than well as a CG mariner. Using its steady bright beacon (the only light that I ever saw that was constantly fixed on when in operation... No flashes) returning from sea at night in bound to Rockland harbor, just around the point, and my Coast Guard SAR Station. I was acquainted with one of the last CG solitary keepers who lived at the light with his family and I did visit the light occasionally while on liberty. It's an extremely scenic view. There were five such light stations in our AOR. A CG Boatswain's Mate 1/C and his family lived there and he and his family kept the place up and going. Anything that he couldn't do, he'd get help with from higher up. Best duty going for a three year tour, I'm tellin' ya. Alas, no more... They are all automated now and the grounds turned over to local government control and used as parks and museums except for the tower and light which the CG still holds title and maintains...
Except for suchlike #10 on the list...
White River Light, Whitehall, MI (Just down the Lake Michigan coast apiece from our E! pal, Joe S)... Which I also know well, and whose light has been decommissioned and replaced and the station, in its entirety, was sold and is privately owned. Not an uncommon occurrence. This beautiful station remains at the entrance channel into White Lake from Lake Michigan and is well viewed, but the small breakwaters are now marked with red and green pole lights at its opening. We Coast Guardsmen motored through that channel into White Lake from Muskegon on 'show the flag' trips, from time to time. Not much action their otherwise. Although I did once see, right in front of my 41ft CG boat mind you now, not 250 yards from the Light, some lubberly fisherman stand up in his little 12 boat and fall over thusly capsizing the craft. Jeesh. We did render proper assistance, of course, along with some rather sardonic advice to the miserable lubber... I visited the grounds once, but the museum was closed and all I got was an outdoor walk around...
I, personally, have my own unusual stories to tell from my time as an Officer-in-Charge of Whitehead Island Light and Fog Signal Station, i.e. Keeper, in Maine. The next light down from Owls Head, actually...
This light has been on the uninhabited island here for 205 years. The many-roomed house, built like a duplex, is an eerie place (particularly the cellar) and our light was green! That means when you're making rounds outside in the middle of the night, all alone, thick o' fog, and light flashes on turning the fog green and then the fog horn sounded, yer damn'd glad to be carrying a shotgun, I'm tellin' ya... Seriously... Did I mention the unmarked graves on the far side of the island near the long-closed old Lifeboat Station? Oh, yeah... They're there, I've seen 'em... and there's something that clangs around in the big red brick generator house-machine shop, by the way...
... And then there's the tour I did with a 14 man CG team out of...
... whose mission was keeping watch over 24 automated lighthouses on... (or in, as in on concrete cribs atop shoals much like White Shoals Light below. 20 miles west of the Mackinaw Bridge. It has its dark creepy cold spots, too,
and that's a fact...)
... the northern portions of Lakes Huron and Michigan (as well as a bazillion other lights on poles and towers). We had a 34ft, very fast (Twin 275hp outboard V-8 engines) boat that I hauled around the technicians in as Coxswain. Three of our lights were on uninhabited islands and we had occasion to 'camp out' at them for 3-4 days. Plenty of time to explore and to find, and feel, and hear, and see... oddities... in and around abandoned keeper's dwellings and out buildings...
It is fun to think of those times when I see articles as like the link. It's fun to remember, was it?... or wasn't it? ... or, what the heck was that!
BadtotheboneBob
Thanks, B2tbBob!
Team Coco
Conan
These are the folks who may decide America's fate:
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Mostly overcast and on the cool side.
The kid & I saw 'The Selling' at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood. It's a fast, funny, entertaining movie with Barry Bostwick, Simon Helberg (Howard on 'Big Bang Theory'), and our pal, Jonathan Klein from Theatre of Note, among others.
We had a wonderful time - more tomorrow - running really late tonight.
'Tonight Show' On Wednesday
Obama
President Barack Obama will be sitting down with Jay Leno on the set of "The Tonight Show" Wednesday, less than two weeks before Election Day.
NBC says Wednesday night's appearance will be Obama's fifth on "The Tonight Show," his third since he became president.
Obama has been making the late-night rounds as the presidential campaign has picked up steam. He was on CBS' "Late Show With David Letterman" last month, and chatted with Jon Stewart on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" last week.
Mitt Romney has avoided the late-night talk shows since he became the Republican party's presidential nominee. But his wife, Ann, did appear on "The Tonight Show" last month.
Obama
Mark Twain Prize for American Humor
Ellen DeGeneres
Jane Lynch and John Leguizamo are joining a lineup that includes Jimmy Kimmel and Kristin Chenoweth to honor Ellen DeGeneres with the nation's top humor prize in Washington.
The Kennedy Center is awarding DeGeneres the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor on Monday night. The show will be broadcast Oct. 30 on PBS stations.
Star entertainers will deliver tribute performances to salute DeGeneres, 54. The lineup includes Jason Mraz, John Krasinski and Sean Hayes.
The prize honors comedians in Mark Twain's tradition of satire and social commentary. Past winners include Steve Martin, Lily Tomlin and Whoopi Goldberg.
Ellen DeGeneres
Obama Wins By A Landslide
"Kids Pick the President"
It's a landslide for President Barack Obama - at least among people too young to vote.
Nickelodeon's Linda Ellerbee said Monday that the president captured 65 percent of the vote to beat Republican Mitt Romney in the network's "Kids Pick the President" vote. More than 520,000 people cast online ballots through the children's network's website over one week earlier this month.
Since it began in 1988, the kids have presaged the adults' vote all but once, when more youngsters voted for John Kerry over George W. Bush in 2004.
Obama answered questions submitted by Nickelodeon viewers for a special earlier this month. Romney didn't participate.
"Kids Pick the President"
Photo Auction
National Geographic
National Geographic Society has chronicled scientific expeditions, explorations, archaeology, wildlife and world cultures for more than 100 years, amassing a collection of 11.5 million photos and original illustrations.
A small selection of that massive archive - 240 pieces spanning from the late 1800s to the present - will be sold at Christie's in December at an auction expected to bring about $3 million, the first time any of the institution's collection has been sold.
Among the items are some of National Geographic's most indelible photographs, including that of an Afghan girl during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, a portrait of Admiral Robert Peary at his 1908 expedition to the North Pole, a roaring lion in South Africa and the face of a Papua New Guinea aborigine.
Paintings and illustrations include N.C. Wyeth's historical scene of sword-fighting pirates, Charles Bittinger's view of Earth as seen from the moon, and Charles Knight's depictions of dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals.
Proceeds from the Dec. 6 auction, just weeks before National Geographic's 125th anniversary, will go for the promotion and preservation of the archive and "the nurturing of young photographers, artists and explorers ... who are the future of the organization," Mulvihill said.
National Geographic
Violates Own Policy
Clear Channel
The 140 billboards warning residents of inner-city neighborhoods in Wisconsin and Ohio that they could go to jail for committing voter fraud are being taken down Monday. The move comes after the private family foundation funding them declined to make its identity known.
Civil rights groups criticized the ads as an attempt to intimidate voters in primarily low-income, minority neighborhoods by associating voting with jail time. The billboards show a large gavel and the text "Voter fraud is a felony! Up to 3 1/2 yrs & $10,000 Fine."
Clear Channel (R-Bain Capitol), the company that put up the advertisements, said the foundation funding the signs was mistakenly allowed to remain anonymous when it bought the billboards, a violation of the company's policy against accepting anonymous political ads.
"We reviewed the situation and in light of the fact that these billboards violate our policy of not accepting anonymous political ads, we asked the client how they would prefer to work with us to bring the boards into conformance with our policy," Clear Channel spokesman Jim Cullinan wrote in an email. "The client thought the best solution was to take the boards down, so we're in the process of removing them."
Clear Channel
Court Convicts 7 Scientists
Italy
Defying assertions that earthquakes cannot be predicted, an Italian court convicted seven scientists and experts of manslaughter Monday for failing to adequately warn residents before a temblor struck central Italy in 2009 and killed more than 300 people.
The court in L'Aquila also sentenced the defendants to six years each in prison. All are members of the national Great Risks Commission, and several are prominent scientists or geological and disaster experts.
Scientists had decried the trial as ridiculous, contending that science has no reliable way of predicting earthquakes. So news of the verdict shook the tightknit community of earthquake experts worldwide.
"It's a sad day for science," said seismologist Susan Hough, of the U.S. Geological Survey in Pasadena, Calif. "It's unsettling." That fellow seismic experts in Italy were singled out in the case "hits you in the gut," Hough added.
The world's largest multi-disciplinary science society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, condemned the charges, verdict and sentencing as a complete misunderstanding about the science behind earthquake probabilities.
Italy
Defends New Hispanic-Influenced Princess
Disney
The Walt Disney Co. is defending its newest princess following a backlash over her Hispanic-influenced ethnicity.
A new character named Sofia will star in the TV movie "Sofia the First: Once Upon a Princess" airing Nov. 18 on the Disney Channel and Disney Junior. Hispanic advocacy groups have questioned whether the fair-skinned, blue-eyed young princess is an accurate representation of the Hispanic population and wondered why Disney isn't doing more to promote its first princess with Hispanic-inspired roots.
"They seem to be backpedaling," said Lisa Navarrete, spokeswoman for the National Council of La Raza. "They've done such a good job in the past when they've introduced Native American, African-American and Asian princesses. They made a big deal out of it, and there was a lot of fanfare, but now they're sort of scrambling. It's unusual because Disney has been very good about Latino diversity."
Craig Gerber, co-executive producer of "Sofia the First," clarified in a Facebook post on Friday that Sofia is "a mixed-heritage princess in a fairytale world." He said her mother and birth father respectively hail from kingdoms inspired by Spain and Scandinavia, though Sofia was born and raised in Enchancia, a "make-believe 'melting pot' kingdom" patterned after the British Isles.
Sofia is voiced by Caucasian "Modern Family" actress Ariel Winter, and her mother is played by Hispanic "Grey's Anatomy" actress Sara Ramirez.
Disney
Plug Pulled
'Private Practice'
ABC's "Private Practice" is shutting down.
ABC Entertainment spokeswoman Alison Rou said Monday that the "Grey's Anatomy" spinoff will be ending after 13 episodes this season, most likely in January. Series star Kate Walsh had previously announced she would be leaving after 13 episodes.
This is its sixth season on the air. After being paired on ABC's schedule with "Grey's Anatomy" on Thursday nights, "Private Practice" moved last spring to Tuesdays.
"Private Practice" had 6 million viewers last week, ranking it No. 51 in Nielsen's weekly listing of the most popular programs.
'Private Practice'
Sold For $1.6B
Ancestry.com
Genealogy website Ancestry.com has agreed to be acquired by a group led by European private equity firm Permira Funds in a cash deal valued at about $1.6 billion.
The offered price of $32 per share is a nearly 10 percent premium over Friday's closing price of $29.18. Ancestry.com's shares jumped 7.9 percent, or $2.30, to $31.48 in afternoon trading Monday.
The company operates a website for researching family history and has more than 2 million paying subscribers. It says more than 10 billion records have been added to its site over the past 15 years. The company develops and acquires systems that digitize handwritten historical documents, and it works with government archives, historical societies and religious institutions around the world.
Earlier this year, Ancestry.com created a nationwide name index from the 1940 U.S. Census after the National Archives posted it online. The index makes it easier for researchers to look up digital images of the actual census forms on Ancestry.com's website because they don't need a subject's exact address.
Ancestry.com
Mummy Conservation
Penn Museum
The Penn Museum is unwrapping the mystery of mummy conservation, giving the public an unusual close-up of researchers' efforts to preserve relics from ancient Egypt.
Human and animal mummies, as well as an intricately inscribed coffin, are among the items undergoing treatment and repair at the Philadelphia institution's newly installed Artifact Lab.
Housed in a special gallery, the glass-enclosed workspace lets visitors share in "the thrill of discovery," museum director Julian Siggers said.
Visitors can watch staff members use microscopes, brushes and other tools of the trade to inspect, study and preserve items including the mummy of a 5-year-old girl, several human heads, a colorful but damaged sarcophagus, and a painting from a tomb wall.
Flat-screen monitors display magnified views of the relics as they are being examined. Conservators will also set aside time twice a day to answer questions from the public.
Penn Museum
Immortalized In Wax
E.T.
E.T. the extra-terrestrial is making appearances around the world.
Madame Tussauds is unveiling wax likenesses of the otherworldly star of Steven Spielberg's 1982 film "E.T. - the Extra-Terrestrial" at six of its international locations Monday.
The wax figures were crafted at Merlin Studios in London and will be on view at Madame Tussauds museums in Los Angeles, Sydney, Tokyo, London, Berlin and Amsterdam.
The exhibit features the iconic scene from the film where a blanket-wrapped E.T. rides in the makeshift basket of little Elliot's BMX bicycle.
E.T.
In Memory
Russell Means
Native American activist-turned-actor Russell Means died on Monday at his home in South Dakota, his family said in a statement. He was 72.
The firebrand former leader of the American Indian Movement and onetime Libertarian Party candidate for U.S. president had been battling advanced esophageal cancer.
Born on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation of the Oglala Sioux in South Dakota, Means joined the American Indian Movement in 1968 and soon became one of the group's prominent leaders. He took part in an occupation of the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs headquarters in Washington, D.C., in 1972, and led the 72-day standoff with federal authorities at Wounded Knee on Pine Ridge in 1973.
Means had fought for Native American rights since the 1960s, when he first protested college and professional sports teams' use of Indian images as mascots, which he said were demeaning caricatures of his people.
Means was arrested numerous times during his long career of protest and spent several periods in jail.
He ran unsuccessfully for president of his tribe and sought the Libertarian nomination for U.S. president, losing to Congressman Ron Paul at the party's 1987 national convention.
Means also dabbled in acting, appearing in such films as "The Last of the Mohicans" and "Natural Born Killers." He was the voice of Pocahontas's father in the popular Disney film.
Means was diagnosed with esophageal cancer in 2011, and underwent a combination traditional Native American and conventional modern medical therapies at an Arizona clinic, but he succumbed to the disease just weeks shy of his 73rd birthday.
Russell Means
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