Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Catherine Shoard: What cinema showed us in 2012 (Guardian)
Visions of the American apocalypse, camp tough guys, and teen stars ruining their clean-cut reputations … it's been quite a year on the big screen.
John Cheese: 4 Easy Solutions To Problems We All Complain About (Cracked)
#3. We Can Start a Music Revolution Right Now.
Felix Clay: 4 Dangerously Influential Dimwits (Cracked)
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. That's a popular belief that pervades society these days and is born of a curious and unearned entitlement, sort of like the way we all think a bus shouldn't have urine on it, but of course it does. It's also terribly untrue due to its lack of completeness. Everyone can have an opinion, but you have to be ready to accept that it may be wrong and misguided and in need of correction. That's not an opinion. That's a stone cold sexy fact.
M. Alice LeGrow, The Assassin Princess: THE VERY TOUGH WEEKEND
So on one memorable weekend, I was booked for four different parties. Nothing terribly unusual, hostessing three and princessing one. I was pretty exhausted when I woke up Saturday morning at about 7 am...I haven't been able to sleep very well for the last few months, either being unable to sleep a straight night through, or else falling asleep without warning during the day. So I was running on about two hours' sleep Saturday morn.
A Day in the Life of a Professional Party Princess (Mental Floss)
M. Alice LeGrow is a professional party princess. It wasn't a job she expected - she was a graphic novelist until a few years ago, when her publisher went out of business. Seeking a steady job, she took on the job of entertaining kids at parties. In this short documentary by NPR, we learn LeGrow's perspective on the job - what's challenging about it, how she has learned to like kids, and indeed how she has learned to like the job. Pro tip: "When in doubt, smile harder!"
Adrienne Crezo: Try, Try Again: Rejection Letters Received by Bestselling Authors (Metal Floss)
For writers, getting rejected can seem like a pastime. But don't take my word for it, even though I've gotten my share of no-thank-yous. These best-selling authors were rejected, too, and some not very kindly. Editors, publishers and agents have made big errors in judgment, as evidenced by the list of unkind (and sometimes needlessly rude) rejections received by these famous writers.
The 100 greatest novels of all time: The list (Guardian)
From 'Don Quixote' to 'American Pastoral,' take a look at the 100 greatest novels of all time.
The 100 greatest non-fiction books (Guardian)
After keen debate at the Guardian's books desk, this is our list of the very best factual writing, organised by category, and then by date.
David Bruce's Amazon Author Page
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David Bruce has approximately 50 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
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Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Rainy and cold (for these parts).
Sweaters Sell For $123K
Aung San Suu Kyi
Myanmar Burma's cash-strapped opposition party is tapping into the prestige of its leader: Two sweaters hand-knit by Aung San Suu Kyi have been auctioned for $123,000.
A green-and-white sweater with a floral design sold at a Friday night auction to an anonymous bidder for 63 million kyat, or $74,120.
On Thursday, a Myanmar-based radio station won a bidding war for a multicolored V-neck that fetched $49,000.
The auction was part of a fundraising event organized by Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party to raise money for education of poor children and health projects in Myanmar, an impoverished Southeast Asian nation also known as Burma.
Both sweaters were knitted by Suu Kyi at least 25 years ago when she was living in England and raising her two children, Ko Ni told The Associated Press.
Aung San Suu Kyi
Get Endangered Species Protection
Ice Seals
Six groups of seals threatened by shrinking sea ice are gaining new protections under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced late last week.
NOAA will list as threatened two distinct bearded seal populations - one in the Beringia region, which includes Alaska, and one in the Okhotsk region of Russia's far east - and three subspecies of ringed seals (Arctic, Okhotsk and Baltic). Another ringed seal subspecies found only in Lake Ladoga in northwestern Russia will be listed as endangered. A fifth subspecies of ringed seal, the Saimaa in Finland, is already listed as endangered under the ESA.
Forecasts predict that sea ice will be substantially reduced within this century, and there is potential for the spring and summer ice edge to retreat to deep waters of the Arctic Ocean basin. Bearded seals live on sea ice during critical months for breeding, whelping, nursing and molting. Ringed seals also use sea ice for molting and they build snow caves on top of sea ice to shield their pups from freezing temperatures and predators.
NOAA officials said the decision will not result in any immediate restrictions on human activities, though their next step is to evaluate potential protected habitats for Arctic ringed seals and the Beringia bearded seals (those that live in U.S. waters), which already has oil and gas companies in Alaska miffed. In a statement, Kara Moriarty, executive director for the Alaska Oil and Gas Association, criticized the decision for being "based on how climate change might affect these species 100 years from now, despite their populations currently being healthy and abundant." The group is concerned that potential habitats could raise costs and cause delays with oil and gas development, the Alaska Dispatch reported.
Ice Seals
To List More Gun Permit Holders
Journal News
A suburban New York newspaper that sparked an uproar among gun enthusiasts by publishing names and addresses of residents holding pistol permits is now planning to publish even more identities of permit-toting locals.
Further names and addresses will be added as they become available to a map originally published on December 24 in the White Plains, New York-based Journal News, the newspaper said.
The original map listed thousands of pistol permit holders in suburban Westchester and Rockland counties just north of New York City.
Along with an article entitled "The gun owner next door: What you don't know about the weapons in your neighborhood," the map was compiled in response to the December 14 shooting deaths of 26 children and adults in Newtown, Connecticut, editors of the Gannett Corp.-owned newspaper said.
The next batch of names will be permit holders in suburban Putnam County, New York, where the county clerk told the newspaper it is still compiling information.
Journal News
Two New Species Found
Orchids
One of the world's newest orchid species is also its most delicate, with tiny white flowers smaller than a dime. Yet the flower finds its home amid boulders near the banks of rushing streams in Cuba's remote eastern mountains.
The orchid is one of two new species identified by botanists in Cuba, a hotbed for orchids - the largest and most diverse plant family in the world. The islands of the Caribbean have more the 25,000 species of orchids tucked into their forests and rivers.
The new species was named Tetramicra riparia, a nod to its discovery along stony streams in the mountains of Baracoa, one of the rainiest and least explored areas in Cuba, Ángel Vale, a researcher at the University of Vigo in Spain, said in a statement. The plant has an unusually broad, sturdy base: Its pedicel is almost four times as large as its column, Vale and his co-authors report.
The second new orchid, from the western tip of the island, dwarfs its neighbor in size. The flower's showy purple and green petals are similar to a daffodil in appearance, spreading more than 2.5 inches (7 centimeters), with up to 20 blooms on one plant.
Orchids
Wasted Vice
LAPD
Nick Stahl was arrested on suspicion of lewd conduct at an adult movie shop in Hollywood on Thursday.
In July, the same LAPD vice unit arrested Willard, 72, at the Tiki Theater in the 5400 block of Santa Monica Boulevard. LAPD officers said they observed Willard "engaged in a lewd act" but did not elaborate. The unit is assigned to crack down on sex crimes in the Hollywood area. Willard was told he could avoid a criminal trial if he completed a diversion program.
The Los Angeles City Attorney's office on Friday was reviewing whether to file a misdemeanor charge against Stahl, who appeared in "Terminator 3" among other movies.
LAPD
Capitalism In Action
Kenya
The director of the Pumwani Maternity Hospital, located in a hardscrabble neighborhood of downtown Nairobi, freely acknowledges what he's accused of: detaining mothers who can't pay their bills. Lazarus Omondi says it's the only way he can keep his medical center running.
Two mothers who live in a mud-wall and tin-roof slum a short walk from the maternity hospital, which is affiliated with the Nairobi City Council, told The Associated Press that Pumwani wouldn't let them leave after delivering their babies. The bills the mothers couldn't afford were $60 and $160. Guards would beat mothers with sticks who tried to leave without paying, one of the women said.
Now, a New York-based group has filed a lawsuit on the women's behalf in hopes of forcing Pumwani to stop the practice, a practice Omondi is candid about.
"We hold you and squeeze you until we get what we can get. We must be self-sufficient," Omondi said in an interview in his hospital office. "The hospital must get money to pay electricity, to pay water. We must pay our doctors and our workers."
Kenya
Overturns 75 Percent Tax
France
Embattled French President Francois Hollande suffered a fresh setback Saturday when France's highest court threw out a plan to tax the ultrawealthy at a 75 percent rate, saying it was unfair.
In a stinging rebuke to one of Socialist Hollande's flagship campaign promises, the constitutional council ruled Saturday that the way the highly contentious tax was designed was unconstitutional. It was intended to hit incomes over €1 million ($1.32 million).
The largely symbolic measure would have only hit a tiny number of taxpayers and brought in an estimated €100 million to €300 million - an insignificant amount in the context of France's roughtly €85 billion deficit.
Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault was quick to respond, saying in a statement following the decision the government would resubmit the measure to take the court's concerns into account. The court's ruling took issue not with the size of the tax, but with the way it discriminated between households depending on how incomes were distributed among its members. A household with two earners each making under €1 million would be exempt from the tax, while one with one earner making €1.2 million would have to pay.
France
Island Dissolving From Within
Oahu
Plan your island getaway now: In time, the mountainous tropical paradise of Oahu will erode, according to new research, with the biggest losses coming from within the island itself.
To be accurate, you do have some time to book that vacation before Hawaii's Oahu flattens from an island into a low-lying seamount. Researchers writing in the upcoming February 15 issue of the journal Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta estimate that the volcanic island will continue to grow, thanks to plate tectonics, for another 75,000 to 1.75 million years. After that, however, the forces working to eat away at Oahu from the inside out will begin to triumph.
Researchers at Brigham Young University in Utah investigated the forces that add and subtract material from Oahu. The island offers an ideal place to conduct such a study, the researchers said, as it consists of one kind of rock that is exposed to very different levels of precipitation. Various regions in Oahu can record between 2 and 23 feet (0.6 to 7 meters) of precipitation a year, depending on the local climate.
The researchers measured solids dissolved in both surface and groundwater from 45 streams and 30 springs and wells around the island, adding those new measurements to previously reported data, for a total of 170 water samples scattered across Oahu.
Using that data, scientists calculated the mass Oahu loses each year. Although one might expect rain to carry away most of the soil in such a wet climate, underground freshwater springs actually removed the bulk of the mineral material from Oahu, the researchers found.
Oahu
Holy Family Church Shakes Down The Shrine of Our Lady of Pompeii
Chicago
Tiny fragments said to be from the manger that held the infant Jesus, the veil of his mother, Mary, and a thread from the cloak of St. Joseph will be displayed by a Roman Catholic church in Chicago when it celebrates its 155th anniversary on Sunday.
The fragments, released by the Vatican in 1972, were a gift to the Holy Family Church from the Shrine of Our Lady of Pompeii, also in Chicago. Displaying them now has particular significance because of their association with Christmas, which marks the birth of Jesus.
Holy Family, built in 1857-1860, is the city's second-oldest church and one of only five public buildings that survived the 1871 Great Chicago Fire.
The fragments will be on display in a crystal reliquary, a vessel in which relics of saints are preserved.
The mass celebrating the transfer of the relics will be held on Sunday morning, and the relics will be displayed during the afternoon.
Chicago
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