Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Paul Krugman: Apple and the Self-Surveillance State (NY Times)
… one thing that's very clear if you spend any time around the rich - and one of the very few things that I, who by and large never worry about money, sometimes envy - is that rich people don't wait in line. They have minions who ensure that there's a car waiting at the curb, that the maitre-d escorts them straight to their table, that there's a staff member to hand them their keys and their bags are already in the room.
ALEXANDRA ALTER: Her Stinging Critiques Propel Young Adult Best Sellers (NY Times)
"The first sentence was, 'I really enjoyed reading the first draft of this promising and ambitious novel,' and the rest was 20 pages of her tearing it apart," Mr. Green said. "Her editorial letters are famous for their ability to make you cry and feel anxious. They're very long, very detailed and very intimidating."
Nicholas Kristof: Enjoying the Low Life? (NY Times)
The United States is the most powerful colossus in the history of the world: Our nuclear warheads could wipe out the globe, our enemies tweet on iPhones, and kids worldwide bop to Beyoncé. Yet let's get real. All this hasn't benefited all Americans. A newly released global index finds that America falls short, along with other powerful countries, on what matters most: assuring a high quality of life for ordinary citizens.
SOCIAL PROGRESS INDEX 2015
To truly advance social progress, we must learn to measure it, comprehensively and rigorously. The Social Progress Index offers a rich framework for measuring the multiple dimensions of social progress, benchmarking success, and catalyzing greater human wellbeing. The 2015 version of the Social Progress Index has improved upon the 2014 version through generous feedback from many observers and covers an expanded number of countries with 52 indicators.
Sophie Heawood: a misanthrope's guide to spring-cleaning your life (Guardian)
It's spring at last, the sun is out, as is the blossom, so now is the ideal time to embrace new beginnings. But don't forget to add a healthy dose of cynicism.
Marc Dion: Don't Kill Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (Creators Syndicate)
What you wanted, if you were any kind of American, was to rewind the tape to just before the bombs went off at the Boston Marathon. And Spider-Man would swing down on a web, defuse the bombs and capture the bombers.
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Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
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
Sunny and seasonal.
Snowpack At Record Low Levels
Western U.S.
Meager precipitation and a premature spring thaw caused by unusually mild temperatures last month have left the U.S. Western mountain snowpack, a key source of fresh surface water for the region, at record low levels, the government reported on Friday.
Melting of winter snows began much earlier than usual this year, from the Sierra Nevada range in California to the lower elevations of Colorado's Rockies, leaving much of the Western snowpack greatly diminished or gone by early April, when it is typically at its peak.
As a consequence, Western states will experience reduced stream-flows from mountain runoff this spring and summer, leaving reservoirs - already well below average capacity in several states - that much more depleted, the report said.
Reservoir storage as of April 1 was below average in at least five western states - Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon and Utah.
Western U.S.
Vatican Showdown
French Ambassador
Three months after appointing an openly gay diplomat as France's ambassador to the Vatican, Paris is still waiting for the green light from Rome.
With Pope Francis entering his third year in the post, some activists see the Vatican's silence as a test of the depth of reform in the Catholic Church.
While the Vatican usually declares it has accepted a candidate around a month after an appointment is made, it makes no public statements at all if the answer is no.
Paris appears determined to stick with seasoned candidate Laurent Stefanini, a 55-year-old practising Catholic whom the foreign ministry described as "one of our best diplomats".
French Ambassador
Sighted In The Monongahela River
Alligator
An alligator reportedly spotted in a western Pennsylvania river may never be found - or even confirmed - but police continued to search for it Friday, the local police chief said.
Nobody has seen the reptile since two people reportedly spotted it in the Monongahela River in Belle Vernon on Tuesday, Southwest Regional Police Chief John Hartman said.
The initial report made by two people near a boat launch indicated the alligator was about 7 feet long.
Police have consulted with the U.S. Coast Guard and Pittsburgh Zoo officials and determined that the alligator - if that's what it was - could survive even though the river remains relatively cold, Hartman said.
Alligator
'Clean the World'
Hotel Soap
Shawn Seipler is on a mission to save lives with soap. It began about seven years ago as a tiny operation with a few friends and family in a single-car garage in Orlando, Florida, where they used meat grinders, potato peelers and cookers to recycle used soap into fresh bars.
The nonprofit initiative, now called Clean the World, has since grown to include industrial recycling facilities in Las Vegas, Orlando and Hong Kong, cities where hotels are plentiful and used bars of soap can be gathered easily by the thousands.
A frequent traveler as a tech company employee, Seipler had a thought one night at a Minneapolis hotel.
"I picked up the phone and called the front desk and asked them what happens to the bar of soap when I'm done using it," he recalled. "They said they just threw it away."
Seipler, now the group's CEO, said some research revealed that millions of used bars of soap from hotels worldwide are sent to landfills every day while many people in developing nations are dying from illnesses that could be prevented with access to simple hygiene products.
Hotel Soap
Dog Whistle Politics
NRA
Leaders of the National Rifle Association on Saturday cited the new Republican majority in the U.S. Senate as evidence of the group's political clout, but warned of looming gun-control efforts in the final years of Barack Obama's presidency.
Wayne LaPierre (R-Draft Dodger), the NRA's executive vice president and CEO, in his members' meeting speech called on Congress to enact a law allowing people with handgun carry permits to be allowed to be armed anywhere in the country, arguing that nobody "should be forced to face evil with bare hands."
The motto of the NRA's annual convention this weekend is: "If they can ban one, they can ban them all." Organizers expect more than 70,000 people to visit the convention's exhibit space, meetings and musical acts in downtown Nashville.
LaPierre and Chris Cox (R-Pink Panties), the head of the NRA's lobbying arm, painted a bleak picture of the state of the country and the dangers to gun rights presented by the last 650 days of Obama's presidency.
"There's no telling how far President Obama will go to dismantle our freedoms and reshape America into an America that you and I will not even recognize," LaPierre said. "And when he's finished he intends to go out with a coronation of Hillary Rodham Clinton."
NRA
HIV Outbreak
Indiana
An HIV outbreak in southeastern Indiana related to intravenous prescription drug abuse has reached 106 confirmed and preliminary cases, state public health officials said on Friday.
As of Thursday there were 95 confirmed HIV cases and 11 preliminary cases from the outbreak in rural Scott County, some 30 miles north of Louisville, Kentucky, a state joint information center said.
Scott County has been the center of the outbreak, the biggest in the state's history.
A short-term state-authorized needle exchange program began on Saturday in Scott County to combat the outbreak. The program authorized by Governor Mike Pence (R-H8er) expires on April 25, but may be extended if necessary.
Indiana
Won't Release Emails
Louisiana
Gov. Bobby Jindal's office refused Friday to release any of the Republican governor's emails from his two terms, saying the messages are either protected from disclosure under state law or personal in nature.
The Associated Press filed a public records request seeking the documents from the governor, who is considering a presidential campaign. In a response, Jindal's chief lawyer, Thomas Enright, said he found "no records responsive" to the request since the governor entered office in 2008.
Louisiana law gives the governor broad exemptions from having to disclose records, including exemptions for decision-making discussions, communication with internal staff, security information and his schedule.
Enright cited those exemptions in the refusal to provide emails, saying Jindal doesn't use email for work outside of communicating with internal staff.
Louisiana
'Unscientific' Quake Fears
Japan
The mass beaching of more than 150 melon-headed whales on Japan's shores has fuelled fears of a repeat of a seemingly unrelated event in the country -- the devastating 2011 undersea earthquake that killed around 19,000 people.
Despite a lack of scientific evidence linking the two events, a flurry of online commentators have pointed to the appearance of around 50 melon-headed whales -- a species that is a member of the dolphin family -- on Japan's beaches six days prior to the monster quake, which unleashed a towering tsunami and triggered a nuclear disaster.
Scientists were on Saturday dissecting the bodies of the whales, 156 of which were found on two beaches on Japan's Pacific coast a day earlier, but could not say what caused the beachings.
The 2011 Japan earthquake is not the only instance of beached whales closely preceding a massive tremor.
More than 100 pilot whales died in a mass stranding on a remote New Zealand beach on February 20, 2011, two days before a large quake struck the country's second-largest city Christchurch.
Japan
Oldest Neanderthal DNA Found
Italian Skeleton
The calcite-encrusted skeleton of an ancient human, still embedded in rock deep inside a cave in Italy, has yielded the oldest Neanderthal DNA ever found.
These molecules, which could be up to 170,000 years old, could one day help yield the most complete picture yet of help paint a more complete picture of Neanderthal life, researchers say.
Although modern humans are the only remaining human lineage, many others once lived on Earth. The closest extinct relatives of modern humans were the Neanderthals, who lived in Europe and Asia until they went extinct about 40,000 years ago. Recent findings revealed that Neanderthals interbred with ancestors of today's Europeans when modern humans began spreading out of Africa - 1.5 to 2.1 percent of the DNA of anyone living outside Africa today is Neanderthal in origin.
In 1993, scientists found an extraordinarily intact skeleton of an ancient human amidst the stalactites and stalagmites of the limestone cave of Lamalunga, near Altamura in southern Italy - a discovery they said had the potential to reveal new clues about Neanderthals.
Italian Skeleton
In Memory
Richard Dysart
Richard Dysart, the Emmy-winning actor who portrayed the cranky senior partner Leland McKenzie in the slick, long-running NBC drama L.A. Law, has died. He was 86.
Dysart, who also played Coach in the original 1972 Broadway production of Jason Miller's Pulitzer Prize-winning That Championship Season, died Sunday at home in Santa Monica after a long illness, his wife, artist Kathryn Jacobi, told The Hollywood Reporter.
The acclaimed L.A. Law - created by Steven Bochco (who eventually handed off the series to David E. Kelley) and Terry Louise Fisher - aired for eight seasons from 1986 to 1994. For playing the founder of the firm McKenzie, Brackman, Chaney and Kuzak, Dysart was nominated for the Emmy for outstanding supporting actor in a drama series for four straight years, finally winning the trophy in 1992.
Dysart's range of authority figure parts ran right to the top. He limned Harry Truman in the CBS telefilm Day One and in the ABC miniseries War and Remembrance, both of which aired in 1989, and he was Henry L. Stimson, the 33rd U.S. president's Secretary of War, in the 1995 HBO telefilm Truman.
Dysart also performed extensively in the medical (movie) field, performing enough doctor roles to, perhaps, qualify to practice. His two most memorable came in classic satires: in Paddy Chayevsky's scathing The Hospital (1971), starring George C. Scott (a good friend), and in Being There (1979), as Melvyn Douglas' doctor.
He also was a doctor who died a gruesome death in John Carpenter's The Thing (1982) and a physician in such films as The Terminal Man (1974), The Falcon and the Snowman (1985) and Warning Sign (1985).
Dysart portrayed J. Edgar Hoover in the 1993 USA telefilm Marilyn & Bobby: Her Final Affair and in Mario Van Peebles' Panther (1995).
Dysart also excelled as cranky coots and shifty sorts. He portrayed a motel receptionist in Richard Lester's Petulia (1968); was the bad guy who battled Clint Eastwood in Pale Rider (1985); stood out as a power player in Oliver Stone's Wall Street (1987); and sold barbwire in Back to the Future III (1990).
Dysart was born March 30, 1929, in Boston and raised in Maine. Following high school, he attended the Gould Academy in Bethel, Maine, for a year, served in the U.S. Air Force and attended Emerson College, where he graduated with a master's degree in speech communications.
Dysart's credits include an eclectic array of movies, including The Crazy World of Julius Vrooder (1974), The Day of the Locust (1975), The Hindenburg (1975), An Enemy of the People (1978), Prophecy (1979), Mask (1985), and Hard Rain (1998).
On television, he was top-notch in the telefilms The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (1974), The People vs. Jean Harris (1981), as Dwight D. Eisenhower in The Last Days of Patton (1986) and as studio chief Louis B. Mayer in Malice in Wonderland (1985).
Survivors also include his stepson Arie and daughter-in-law Jeannine Jacobi, mother-in-law Lenore, brother and sister-in-law Nadine and John Jacobi and grandchildren Abby and Levi.
A private memorial is being planned. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be made to the Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum, an outdoor theater in Topanga Canyon in the Los Angeles area.
Richard Dysart
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