Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Paul Krugman: "The Fiscal Future I: The Hyperbolic Case for Bigger Government" (NY Times)
… the truth is that paternalism in these areas has led to pretty good results - mandatory K-12 education, Social Security, and Medicare make our lives more productive as well as more secure.
How to Get to Mars. Very Cool! HD (YouTube)
"How To get to Mars" is a clip from the IMAX documentary "Roving Mars" from 2006. This is an edited short version.
Sophie Heawood: #FreeTheNipple: liberation or titillation? (Guardian)
Can a global movement than relies on photos of naked breasts really be one in the eye for patriarchy? Celebrities, and even an MP, have joined a campaign to change the double standard when it comes to nipples.
Paul Mason: Can Marxist theory predict the end of Game of Thrones? (Guardian)
The Lannisters' gold has run out. The bankers are impatient. The sex-and-power feudal system of Westeros is in its dying throes. Surely revolution is inevitable?
Michael Daye: 9 Utterly Terrifying Movies Older Than Anything You've Seen (Cracked)
Early cinema could get bizarrely hardcore and hardcorely bizarre, even by today's standards. In fact, many of the very earliest films still manage to put modern horror movies to shame. For instance ...
Geoff Dyer: Underground culture isn't dead - it's just better hidden than it used to be (Guardian)
The counterculture is now a retail over-the-counter culture of cool cafes. But new alternative spaces and happenings will always keep popping up.
Suzanne Moore: Never mind how 'cool' Twin Peaks is, what about taking it seriously? (Guardian)
The hipster appropriation of this great series makes me uneasy. David Lynch portrayed a world of abuse and sexual murder of young women that is all too real.
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David Bruce has over 80 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
, wrote:
took the day off.
has returned to semi-retired status.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Team Coco
CONAN
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
Little bit of rain.
'American Pie' Lyrics Sell At Auction
Don McLean
Songwriter Don McLean's original working manuscript for "American Pie," one of the most iconic songs of the 20th century, sold for $1.2 million, auctioneers Christie's said on Tuesday.
It fell short of the $2 million record set last year for Bob Dylan's hand-written lyrics for "Like A Rolling Stone."
McLean's hand-written and typed drafts include notes and deletions, giving clues to the meaning of the eight-minute song that has had countless interpretations since it was released in 1971.
McLean was a struggling songwriter when he wrote the song in Cold Spring, N.Y. and Philadelphia. Its six verses reflect the social upheavals that were occurring in the United States in the 1960s and early '70s.
Don McLean
Questionable Quote
Maya Angelou
The U.S. Postal Service issued a new limited edition "Forever" stamp Tuesday, honoring the late poet, author and civil rights champion Maya Angelou, but it carries a quote that apparently originated elsewhere.
The stamp dedicated Tuesday at a Washington ceremony showcases Atlanta artist Ross Rossin's 2013 portrait of Angelou, an oil painting in the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery collection.
The stamp includes the quotation: "A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song."
Children's book author Joan Walsh Anglund told The Washington Post the quotation is in her book of poems "A Cup of Sun," published in 1967. Anglund, 89, said she didn't know about the stamp but that she hopes it is successful.
Maya Angelou
Dramatic Rescue
Sea Shepherd
Environmental activist group Sea Shepherd said it rescued 40 crew members from a sinking "poaching" ship it was pursuing for months for allegedly illegally fishing in the Southern Ocean, but described the ship's sinking as suspicious.
Sea Shepherd said its ships Bob Barker and Sam Simon picked up the crew, which included the captain, from life rafts from the Nigerian-flagged boat Thunder late Monday.
They had been sailing in the waters of Sao Tome and Principe, an island nation off Africa's western coast.
Bob Barker's captain Peter Hammarstedt said Thunder's captain, who was not named, complained about being rescued and "started applauding and cheering" when the vessel sank.
Sea Shepherd
Jack Daniel's Turns Back Latest Challenge
Tennessee Whiskey
Jack Daniel's has turned back the latest challenge to a state law that determines which spirits can be marketed as "Tennessee Whiskey," but upstart distillers hoping their brands make the cut vow the fight isn't over for good.
Opponents of the law enacted at the behest of Jack Daniel's in 2013 said they withdrew their repeal measure Tuesday to try to generate more support before next year's legislative session. But Jack Daniel's master distiller Jeff Arnett declared the proposal dead.
The subsidiary of Louisville, Kentucky-based Brown-Forman Corp. is by far the dominant player in the Tennessee whiskey field, producing 11.5 million cases in 2014. The next largest producer, George Dickel, makes about 130,000 cases per year, while most of the state's other 32 licensed distilleries have yet to bring a Tennessee whiskey to market.
Jack Daniel's says the law ensures minimum quality standards, but some smaller distillers chafed at its requirement to filter spirits through charcoal and store them in unused oak barrels in order to label them Tennessee whiskey.
Tennessee Whiskey
Wins Right To Pursue Missouri Records
Larry Flynt
A federal appeals court on Tuesday said Larry Flynt, the publisher of Hustler magazine, had a right to weigh in on two lawsuits challenging how Missouri conducts executions.
The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis said a lower court judge applied the wrong legal standard in finding that Flynt's "generalized interest" in the litigation did not justify his being allowed to pursue sealed court records.
Sixteen media outlets and interest groups, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, Politico and Public Citizen, supported the appeal of Flynt, who was paralyzed in a 1978 shooting.
Invoking the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, Flynt said he had a right to review various sealed records, in part to identify an anesthesiologist working for the state.
Flynt claimed an interest as a publisher and death penalty opponent, and also because Joseph Franklin, who had confessed to shooting him in 1978, was a plaintiff in both cases.
Larry Flynt
Activists Board Shell Oil Rig
Greenpeace
Six activists with the environmental group Greenpeace climbed aboard a Royal Dutch Shell oil rig in the Pacific Ocean bound for the Arctic on Monday, the organization said.
The group said in a statement its team would occupy the underside of the Polar Pioneer's main deck and plans to unfurl a banner with the names of millions of people opposed to Arctic drilling, adding that they would not interfere with the vessel's navigation.
"We're here to highlight that in less than 100 days Shell is going to the Arctic to drill for oil," 32-year-old Johno Smith, one of the six to board the Blue Marlin, the ship carrying the rig, said in the statement.
Images published by Greenpeace showed the activists using climbing gear to move from an inflatable boat onto the Blue Marlin heavy-lift vessel towing the Pioneer, one of two drill rigs heading to the region, as it cruised some 750 miles (1,207 km) northwest of Hawaii.
Greenpeace
Anonymous Threats
Hackers
Pro-Palestinian hackers disrupted Israeli websites on Tuesday, following threats from the Anonymous hacking collective that it would carry out an "electronic Holocaust," though Israeli cyber experts said the coordinated attacks caused little damage.
The hacking campaign, which has taken place every April 7 since 2013, is meant to be in protest of Israeli policies toward the Palestinians. In 2013, the hackers first waged the coordinated campaign, dubbed OpIsrael, on the eve of Israel's annual Holocaust remembrance day.
Israel's Computer Emergency Response Team, a civilian cyber security group, said Anonymous attacked a few dozen websites belonging to Israeli musicians and non-profit organizations on Tuesday. Anonymous had vowed it would topple Israeli government websites, banks and public institutions, though no major disruptions were reported.
The hackers replaced website home pages with photos of a Muslim holy site in Jerusalem and of militants holding the Islamic State militant flag, and posted a message signed by "AnonGhost."
Hackers
New History Textbooks
Japan
Japan on Tuesday rebuffed neighbouring countries' protests about newly approved textbooks after complaints about references to disputed territory and their bitter shared history.
The education ministry announced on Monday that all 18 new social studies textbooks for use in junior high schools assert Japanese ownership of two separate island groups at the centre of disputes with China and South Korea.
New school books also fail to use the word "massacre" when referring to Japan's mass slaughter of Chinese civilians in Nanjing in 1937, preferring the term "incident".
The textbook dispute surfaces regularly in the three-way row over events in the first half of the 20th century, when Japan invaded and occupied large tracts of Asia.
But it has come at a particularly sensitive time as the region prepares to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, and with a rising tide of nationalism in China, Japan and South Korea.
Japan
Prime-Time Nielsens
Ratings
Prime-time viewership numbers compiled by Nielsen for March 30-April 5. Listings include the week's ranking and viewership.
1. NCAA Final Four: Wisconsin vs. Kentucky, TBS, 16.8 million.
2. "NCIS," CBS, 16.6 million.
3. "The Big Bang Theory," CBS, 13.89 million.
4. "Dancing With the Stars," ABC, 13.76 million.
5. "The Voice" (Monday), NBC, 11.87 million.
6. "NCAA Studio Show," TBS, 11.57 million.
7. NCAA Final Four: Duke vs. Michigan St., TBS, 11.14 million.
8. "Blue Bloods," CBS, 10.7 million.
9. "NCAA Post-Game Show," TBS, 9.71 million.
10. "A.D., The Bible Continues," NBC, 9.68 million.
11. "Survivor," CBS, 9.59 million.
12. "Modern Family," ABC,, 9.43 million.
13. "Scorpion," CBS, 9.38 million.
14. "Madam Secretary," CBS, 9.27 million.
15. "NCIS: Los Angeles," CBS, 9.17 million.
16. "The Dovekeepers, Part 1," CBS, 8.98 million.
17. "Hawaii Five-0," CBS, 8.87 million.
18. "The Odd Couple," CBS, 8.7 million.
19. "Mom," CBS, 8.62 million.
20. "The Voice" (Tuesday), NBC, 8.57 million.
Ratings
In Memory
James Best
Prolific character actor James Best, best known for playing the giggling and inept Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane on "The Dukes of Hazzard," has died. He was 88.
His wife of 29 years, Dorothy Best, said that Best died Monday night in hospice care in Hickory from complications of pneumonia.
Best starred on the television series that ran from 1979 to 1985. He was the lawman futilely chasing the Duke boys, often in the company of his droopy-faced basset hound Flash. Best employed a battery of catch phrases in the role, as well as memorable laugh that was comically villainous.
During a wide-ranging career of several decades, he also acted in movies including "The Caine Mutiny" and "Rolling Thunder," and he appeared on television shows including "Gunsmoke," "Twilight Zone," and "The Andy Griffith Show."
Best was an acting teacher who helped several future Hollywood stars learn how to appear more natural on camera.
Best was born in the western Kentucky community of Powderly, the youngest of eight brothers and a sister. After his mother died when he was a toddler, Best was adopted and raised in Indiana. He served in the U.S. Army in World War II and started acting in a military theatre company, according to his website.
James Best
In Memory
Stan Freberg
Stan Freberg, whose freewheeling comic career in advertising garnered him worldwide acclaim and whose satirical entertainments abounded on TV, the radio and on records, has died. He was 88.
Freberg died of natural causes at a Santa Monica hospital, his son and daughter, Donavan and Donna Freberg, confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter.
The godfather of humorous and irreverent commercials, Freberg lampooned cultural institutions and described himself as a "guerilla satirist." The New York Times dubbed him the "Che Guevara of advertising," and years later, "Weird Al" Yankovic called him a major influence on his career.
Freberg also was known for his musical parodies. "Wun'erful Wun'erful," his 1957 spoof of "champagne music" - on which he collaborated with orchestra leader Billy May - lampooned The Lawrence Welk Show.
He also parodied Johnnie Ray's hit "Cry," which Freberg rendered as "Try." (Ray was quite angry until he realized Freberg was fueling sales of his record.)
The Los Angeles native had hit records of his own, including St. George and the Dragonet, a 1953 send-up of the series Dragnet. His recordings were so popular that he landed his own radio program in 1954, That's Rich. Three years later, he presented The Stan Freberg Show on CBS Radio, where he regularly mocked commercials by advertising bogus products.
He won a Grammy Award in 1959 for best performance, documentary or spoken word for The Best of the Stan Freberg Shows.
Earlier in the 1950s, Freberg helped create and write the Emmy Award-winning comedy Time for Beany, also working with puppets and performing on the show. Its droll, off-the-wall humor appealed to fans including Albert Einstein. During Beany's early gestation, he and the other writers had no office, so they wrote in coffee shops at night as well as in an "office" in a condemned building.
Not surprisingly, Freberg ruffled institutional feathers. Capitol Records balked at releasing his satires of radio-TV personality Arthur Godfrey and Ed Sullivan's variety show Toast of the Town.
Freberg disdained the hard sell. He created such classic comic ad capers as "Nine out of 10 doctors recommend Chun King Chow Mein," and his Jeno's Frozen Pizza campaign featured the Lone Ranger and Tonto. He skewered the greed of the ad business in "Green Chri$tma$, which criticized the over-commercialization of the holiday.
In 1958, Freberg opened his own ad agency, Freberg Ltd. His slogan was "More Honesty Than the Client Had in Mind," and he even had a corporate motto: "Ars Gratia Pecuniae" (Art of the Sake of Money).
Freberg, whose inspirations were Jack Benny, Fred Allen and Norman Corwin, worked in cartoons for decades, starting in the 1940s. He provided the voice for Junyer Bear in the 1948 Chuck Jones Looney Tunes cartoon What's Brewin', Bruin, and he famously played the three pigs, the wolf and the singing narrator in another Looney Tunes classic, 1957's Three Little Bops. He teamed often at Warner Bros. with the great Mel Blanc.
Freberg also was the voice of Beaver in Disney's Lady and the Tramp (1955). For the feature Looney Tunes, Back in Action (2003), he was heard as a baby bear.
Survivors also include his wife, Hunter, and a granddaughter.
Stan Freberg
In Memory
Fredric Brandt
Pioneering dermatologist Dr. Fredric Brandt, an early proponent of Botox who was also an author, radio host and frequent television talk show guest, has died. He was 65.
Miami police spokeswoman Frederica Burden said Monday officers found Brandt's body at his home in the Coconut Grove section of Miami about 9:15 a.m. Sunday after a friend contacted them. Burden said Brandt apparently hanged himself and that foul play is not suspected. An autopsy is planned, however.
Brandt had offices in Coral Gables and New York and famous patients including singer Madonna. According to his publicists, he launched his Dr. Brandt Skin Care line in 2001 and wrote two successful skin care books.
For four years he hosted the "Ask Dr. Brandt" show on SiriusXM radio, where his guests included celebrities such as Gwyneth Paltrow and Kelly Ripa.
Fredric Brandt was born in 1949 in Newark, New Jersey, graduating from Rutgers University and earning his medical degree from Drexel University Medical School, according to an official biography. During residencies at New York University and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, he looked into several specialties including oncology and cardiology but eventually decided to focus on dermatology.
He opened his Miami dermatology practice in 1982 and developed an expertise in injectable substances, including Botox. Much of his work involved running clinical trials for many other dermatology treatments. Brandt opened his New York practice in 1998 and divided time between the two cities.
Fredric Brandt
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