Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Ted Rall: The Devils We Don't Know
Who Are the Libyan Opposition?
Marc Dion: Kindling for the Big Fire (Creators Syndicate)
A recent report saying radiation is being found in rain over some parts of the United States means I'm about to pull death down over my head like a stocking cap. And as my head sweated in anticipation, I went out and bought a Kindle because, next to sex and the bearing of false witness, humankind knows no higher imperative than to buy things.
Existential indifference (Guardian)
Am I really bovvered if my life lacks meaning, asks Oliver Burkeman.
Free-Market Solutions for Overweight Americans (Wall Street Journal)
Matt Ridley looks at a dieting solution tied to "bottom-up" economics.
Charlyn Fargo: Diet and Exercise Combo is Still the Best Idea (Creators Syndicate)
A mostly plant-based diet that includes 5 to 6 ounces of lean poultry, fish or meat and three servings of dairy products or alternatives will meet the daily protein requirements of most adults.- American Institute for Cancer Research
Charles Eugster: "Experience: I am a 91-year-old bodybuilder" (Guardian)
'At 85 I had a crisis. I looked in the mirror, and saw an old man. I was overweight, my posture was terrible and there was skin hanging off me. I looked a wreck.'
Edited from an interview by Jackie Cooperman: Frank Gehry (Wall Street Journal)
The architect talks about his new residential tower, why he doesn't sketch much anymore and what he does to relax.
Joe Queenan: "Kenneth Branagh: The star who forgot how to shine" (Guardian)
Two decades ago, Kenneth Branagh was "the new Olivier". Now he's directing a comic-book adaptation. Why? Because he was never meant to be an idol.
The secret diary of Claire Danes (Guardian)
Why is the Hollywood actor reading Adrian Mole and getting to grips with British drinking culture? Emma Brockes finds out.
George Varga: Blink's Mark Hoppus Fuses Talents on TV (Creators Syndicate)
As a member of the pop-punk band blink-182, Mark Hoppus has become rich and famous beyond his wildest dreams.
George Varga: "Deering Banjos: A Company with Pluck" (Creators Syndicate)
Deering Banjos was barely four years old when Bruce Springsteen recorded "From Small Things (Big Things One Day Come)" in 1979. But that song's title perfectly captures the slow, yet steady, growth of this plucky San Diego company.
Anna Tims: "Kate Nash: my Saturday job" (Guardian)
Award winning singer/songwriter Kate Nash remembers teenage life in the retail trade with ladies of leisure and thieving kids.
David Bruce has 41 Kindle books on Amazon.com with 250 anecdotes in each book. Each book is $1, so for $41 you can buy 10,250 anecdotes. Search for "Funniest People," "Coolest People, "Most Interesting People," "Kindest People," "Religious Anecdotes," and "Maximum Cool."
wrote:
responded:
Reader Suggestions
Michelle in AZ
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Reader Recommendation
Live Eagle Camera
This is simply amazing! to watch! It is an Eagles nest with a video camera on it showing the Eagles taking care of their eggs and chicks. You can enlarge full screen in the right hand corner. It even shows them at night. You will have to watch a commercial before viewing. If you love birds - you will love this!!
MAM
Thanks, Marianne!
BadtotheboneBob
High Times in Ann Arbor
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Moslty cloudy and cool.
Our Saturday Hollywood adventure went well.
The kid's play is officially cast and rehearsals begin this week.
Leaving News Snchor Post
Katie Couric
Katie Couric is leaving her anchor post at "CBS Evening News" less than five years after becoming the first woman to solely helm a network TV evening newscast.
A network executive, who spoke on condition of anonymity because Couric has not officially announced her plans, reported the move to The Associated Press on Sunday night. The perky 54-year-old anchor is expected to launch a syndicated talk show in 2012 and several companies are vying for her services.
Couric's move from NBC's "Today" show was big news in 2006, and she began in the anchor chair with a flourish that September. She tried to incorporate her strengths as an interviewer into a standard evening news format and millions of people who normally didn't watch the news at night checked it out. But they drifted away and the evening newscast reverted to a more traditional broadcast.
After those first few weeks, the "CBS Evening News" settled into for third place in the ratings and is well behind leader Brian Williams at NBC's "Nightly News" and second-place Diane Sawyer at ABC's "World News."
No departure date has been set for Couric. Her CBS News contract expires on June 4.
Katie Couric
Aims For Speed
James Cameron
James Cameron plans another innovation for his next "Avatar" installment: shooting at double or more the film speed that has been Hollywood's standard since the 1920s, a move he says will greatly improve 3-D images.
Cameron, whose 2009 sci-fi blockbuster raised the bar for digital imagery and put the 3-D craze on the fast track, said Thursday that "Avatar 2" would be shot at 48 or 60 frames a second to reduce an effect called "strobing" that can blur moving images, particularly those in 3-D. For more than 80 years, the norm has been 24 frames a second.
In a demonstration for theater owners at their CinemaCon convention, Cameron played 3-D footage he recently shot at 24, 48 and 60 frames a second to show the better quality of high-speed filming.
The footage of medieval dinner and fight sequences shot at 48 and 60 frames a second were noticeably superior.
At 24 frames, blurriness was very evident when the camera panned or dollied along the dinner table and when two knights dueled with swords. The fuzzy images greatly diminished at 48 frames and virtually vanished at 60 frames.
James Cameron
5 Decades
R. Crumb
Robert Crumb finds it odd that 90 pieces of his work are hanging on the wall or protected under glass at a new exhibit featuring the underground "Zap Comix," "Bijou Funnies" and so many more.
"R. Crumb: Lines Drawn on Paper," on display through April 30 at the Museum of American Illustration at the Society of Illustrators, showcases original comic covers, inside illustrations, posters, even a hand-painted storefront sign urging customers to come in and spend some money. The works provide a timeline of his emergence and mastery of what was then seen as lowbrow vulgarity but has become much sought-after art.
Still, Crumb is mystified as to why anyone would want to see his creations in a gallery.
"It was never intended for that purpose, so it's always odd to see it on a wall, or under glass; it was intended for printing and books. It wasn't made as a wall hanging piece," Crumb said in an interview with The Associated Press. "For me, the printed copy is the magic moment. When I see it in print - that was the whole purpose of it."
R. Crumb
Giant Yellow Teddy Bear
Untitled (Lamp/Bear)
London has Paddington Bear but New York now has a giant yellow teddy bear, a great sculptural masterpiece that could sell for more than $9 million at auction in May, Christie's said on Saturday.
A 23-foot (7-meter) high, bronze teddy bear slumped under a black bedside lamp will be on display for five months in midtown Manhattan from next week and be a highlight of the Post-War & Contemporary sale on May 11.
The 35,000 pound (15.8 metric tons) sculpture, Untitled (Lamp/Bear), is the work of New York-based Swiss artist Urs Fischer. Brett Gorvy, Christie's deputy chairman for Post-War and Contemporary Art, described Fischer as the Jeff Koons of his generation.
Gorvy said the U.S. collector selling the sculpture, whom he declined to name, had already turned down a private offer of $9 million.
Untitled (Lamp/Bear)
More Customers Exposed
Data Breach
The e-mails and names of customers of Citigroup Inc, Walgreens and other large U.S. companies were exposed in a massive and growing data breach, after a computer hacker penetrated online marketer Epsilon.
In what could be one of the biggest such breaches in U.S. history, a diverse swath of companies that did business with Epsilon stepped forward over the weekend to warn customers some of their electronic information could have been exposed.
Video recorder TiVo Inc, credit card lender Capital One Financial Corp and teleshopping company HSN Inc added their names to a list of targets that also includes some of the nation's largest banks.
Epsilon, an online marketing unit of Alliance Data Systems Corp, said on Friday that a person outside the company hacked into some of its clients' customer files. The vendor sends more than 40 billion e-mail ads and offers annually, usually to people who register for a company's website or who give their e-mail addresses while shopping.
On Friday, JPMorgan Chase & Co, the second-largest U.S. bank, and Kroger Co, the biggest U.S. supermarket operator, said that some customers had their names and e-mail addresses exposed as part of the Epsilon data breach.
Data Breach
Video Game Creator Sues
Robin Antonick
The man who created the first version of the uber-successful "Madden NFL Football" video game is suing Electronic Arts over tens of millions of dollars in owed royalties and potentially billions in profits over the franchise, which has sold more than 85 million copies in the more than 20 years since it hit the marketplace.
As real-life professional football experiences a work stoppage thanks to disagreements between owners and players over how to split the revenue pie, now the game of football in digital form is experiencing its own financial quarrel.
Robin Antonick is demanding a jury trial in California, pressing claims in a lawsuit filed Wednesday that he has been cut out of the "Madden" franchise fortune.
Antonick, an Illinois native, says he created the ground-breaking football video game, giving game players the chance to simulate a football game with eleven players on the field for each team.
The first versions of the game were created for the Commodore 64, MS Dos, and Apple II platforms and released in 1988. He says he developed the game both with programing expertise and knowledge of former Oakland Raiders head coach John Madden's behavior in calling plays in certain game situations.
Robin Antonick
"Hitler's Willing Helpers"
Berlin
A new exhibition opened in Berlin Friday showing for the first time how enthusiastically the German police under the Nazis supported Hitler and became willing perpetrators of his crimes.
"Order and Annihilation" at the German Historical Museum also shows how for the most part, members of the police went unpunished after 1945, particularly in democratic West Germany.
It helps to shatter a popular myth that until relatively recently was widespread, including among the country's modern force, that it was just the Gestapo secret police who got blood on their hands, organisers said.
In fact, ordinary policemen -- and a few policewomen -- helped the Nazi dictator brutally crush his political opponents in his rise to total power.
They also played a decisive role in the persecution, rounding up and mass murder of Jews and and other "undesirables" both inside Germany and in Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe.
Berlin
40 Years Later
Watergate
Nearly 40 years after Richard Nixon was forced out over Watergate, an exhibit aiming to give an unbiased account of the scandal has finally opened in the ex-president's birthplace.
But not everyone is entirely happy in Yorba Linda, the California town where "Tricky Dick" was born and is laid to rest next to his beloved wife Pat in the sun-dappled grounds of the Nixon library and museum.
The 37th US president, who died in 1994, oversaw the creation of a private presidential library in his name in Yorba Linda, some 35 miles (55 kilometers) southeast of Los Angeles, including a section on Watergate.
But in 2007, responsibility for the center was transferred from the Nixon Foundation to the US National Archives, which manages presidential libraries across the United States.
The original exhibit notably referred to the Watergate scandal as a "coup" against Nixon by his rivals. The Nixon Foundation, grouping his family and supporters, said it unashamedly gave the former president's perspective on the scandal.
Watergate
Says Tibetan Glaciers Melting
Dalai Lama
The Dalai Lama said Saturday that India should be seriously concerned about the melting of glaciers in the Tibetan plateau as millions of Indians use water that comes from there.
The Tibetan spiritual leader quoted Chinese experts as saying that the Tibetan glaciers were retreating faster than any elsewhere in the world.
The glaciers are considered vital lifelines for Asian rivers, including the Indus and the Ganges. Once they vanish, water supplies in those regions will be threatened.
As these major rivers come from the Tibetan plateau and "since millions of Indians use water coming from the Himalayan glacier, so you have certain right to show your concern about ecology of that plateau," the Dalai Lama told an audience of about 400 Indians.
Dalai Lama
Soldier Breaks Silence
Auschwitz
It took him more than 60 years to break his silence, but in a new book 92-year-old Denis Avey tells the story of how he broke into Auschwitz concentration camp twice to witness for himself the horrors of the Holocaust.
Avey was a British soldier captured during World War Two and sent to a labor camp close to Auschwitz where he worked at the IG Farben plant alongside inmates from the concentration camp, nicknamed "stripeys" after their uniforms.
While Avey, a headstrong, battle-hardened soldier, was told about the mass extermination of Jews and experienced the sickening smell from a nearby crematorium, he wanted to see for himself what was happening in Auschwitz.
After weeks of preparation, including bribes to a guard, Avey twice swapped uniforms with a Dutch Jew of roughly the same height to sneak into the camp where he spent the night.
Auschwitz
Weekend Box Office
'Hop'
Russell Brand's family comedy "Hop" debuted at No. 1 with $38.1 million, according to studio estimates Sunday.
With Brand providing the voice of the reluctant new Easter bunny, "Hop" bound well beyond the expectations of industry analysts, who had figured the movie would debut in the $25 million range.
Jake Gyllenhaal's action thriller "Source Code" debuted at No. 2 with $15.1 million. The haunted-house tale "Insidious" opened at No. 3 with $13.5 million.
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Hollywood.com. Final figures will be released Monday.
1. "Hop," $38.1 million.
2. "Source Code," $15.1 million.
3. "Insidious," $13.5 million.
4. "Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules," $10.2 million.
5. "Limitless," $9.4 million.
6. "The Lincoln Lawyer," $7.1 million.
7. "Sucker Punch," $6.1 million.
8. "Rango," $4.6 million.
9. "Paul," $4.3 million.
10. "Battle: Los Angeles," $3.5 million.
'Hop'
| CURRENT MOON lunar phases |
