“Perhaps you’ve heard that we have a pretty serious problem with retirement planning in the United States. Over half of all baby boomers have less than $250,000 saved in retirement accounts — a sum that by itself would only allow for $833 in cash per month.
At the same time, some pretty alarming trends are pinching America’s middle class. As calculated by Bard College economics professor Pavlina Tcherneva, the bottom 90% of U.S. workers have largely missed out on the economic expansions since 1982.”
“Lost just celebrated their 10-year anniversary and we’ve been looking back on the series and its legacy over the past few weeks. We had the opportunity to sit down with Terry O’Quinn ahead of his FOX series Gang Related some time ago and wanted to share the portion of our chat that had to do with his experience on Lost and his take on his character John Locke – who was so central to the series – in celebration of the anniversary.”
“The Library of Congress has experienced a significant reduction in staff over the past 10 years and faces an even greater reduction as more employees near retirement, according to data gathered by an employee union.
“One of the Library’s greatest resources, which is its staff, has already hemorrhaged,” Library of Congress Professional Guild president Saul Schniderman told CQ Roll Call on Monday. “This isn’t something that’s going to happen. It’s already happened.” The union represents roughly half of the library’s more than 3,000 employees.
In a letter to guild members, Schniderman noted a nearly 50 percent drop in catalog and acquisition librarians and a roughly 25 percent drop in reference services staff over the past 10 years. The data also showed a slight increase in information technology specialists.”
“Johnnie Brown, stylish in a straw fedora and French cuffed shirt, strolled through one of Savannah’s oldest black cemeteries, pausing in front of a towering oak tree. Pointing at the clusters of gashes in the tree trunk, Mr. Brown shook his head bitterly. “Right here is the whipping tree,” he said. “You look at this and you don’t have to wonder why so many black folks left the South.” ”
Posted on Thursday, October 2 at 8:34am | By Marshall Kilduff
“It’s not okay to shampoo your hair in a library sink. You can’t push your shopping cart among the bookshelves. If you smell really bad, you could be kicked out of the reading areas for a week.”
“A long-lost copy of a 1916 silent film starring the actor William Gillette as Sherlock Holmes will debut again after its discovery in the film archives of the Cinémathèque française in Paris.”
“A few years ago, sound recordings of wolf howls were provided to Holly Root-Gutteridge, a PhD student at Nottingham Trent University who investigated whether wolves could be identified by their voices alone. For the opening of the British Library’s exhibition, Terror and Wonder: The Gothic Imagination, we invited Holly to write a piece about her research into these hair-raising sounds.”
“Architecture Orchid: Central Library, 330 Park Blvd.; city of San Diego; Rob Wellington Quigley and Tucker Sadler Architects. “A grand gesture that has created an iconic addition to the skyline of San Diego and contributed to further activation of East Village…inspirational, well used and the rooftop terrace is spectacular.” — Darren Bradley Photography”
“The judges agreed: Atlas, an Oceanside police canine, is a top cop dog.
The 3-year-old Belgian Malinois and his partner, Officer Kevin Wilson — in their first competition ever — took first-place overall last weekend in K-9 trials hosted by the South Lake Tahoe Police Canine Association. Their team performance bested 25 other officer-dog teams.”
“NVIDIA® SHIELD™ changes the way you experience entertainment, with unbeatable video, audio, and connectivity. SHIELD brings all your favorite content to life—from Netfllix and Hulu Plus, to Pandora, YouTube, and a whole lot more—with exceptional sound and graphics.”
“Coming Home will be released at the end of the month. I can’t recall that writing any novel ever provided more sheer pleasure and, simultaneously, more of a challenge. Alex and Chase live 10,000 years in the future. This time out, they return to Earth in an effort to learn what happened to a collection of early space age artifacts, dating from the first manned orbital flights to the development of an interstellar drive, that were lost during a dark age. The challenge derived from making some reasonable guesses about how the future might develop.”
“There are diverse and plentiful locations throughout central North Carolina for seeing fall color. Escape the bustle of the Triangle towns of Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill at William B. Umstead State Park. Take a five-mile lakeshore foliage hike at Lake Norman State Park just north of Charlotte. Or enjoy camping, fishing and picnicking surrounded by fall color at Raven Rock State Park.
Check in here for fall color updates from state parks and natural areas throughout the central region. You can also follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and share your fall photos using the hashtag #VisitNC.”
“Lawrence Kasdan has had quite an impressive career in Hollywood, moving from cowriting blockbusters like The Empire Strikes Back and Raiders of the Lost Ark to writing and directing his own, more personal films. In this excerpt from a new interview recorded for Criterion, Kasdan talks about his positive experiences in the studio system, and how working on what he calls “high-quality mass entertainment” allowed him to move on to darker, more dramatic territory, as he did with The Big Chill.”
“A Florida author recommends several inspiring, sustaining, but too little known books about the Sunshine State that are often overlooked but to which he returns repeatedly.”
“James Dean, in full James Byron Dean (born Feb. 8, 1931, Marion, Indiana, U.S.—died Sept. 30, 1955, near Paso Robles, California), strikingly handsome American motion picture actor enshrined as a symbol of the confused, restless, and idealistic youth of the 1950s.”
Cropped screenshot of James Dean in the trailer for the film East of Eden (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
San Diego is out to create a $3-million destination food hall — like San Francisco’s Ferry Building or Napa’s Oxbow Public Market — at Liberty Station in the city’s Point Loma neighborhood.
Travelers and locals will be able to sample artisanal breads and homemade tortillas, craft cocktails and fine wines, fresh produce from a daily farmers market and seafood at what will be called Liberty Public Market, an announcement from co-creator Blue Bridge Hospitality of San Diego says.
Winnie Hanford, Kensington Video’s Rock of Gibraltar, just delivered a heaping dose of terrible news. After 30 years in business, the world-class video store will be closing shop in February, 2015.
The mystery of Colony Collapse Disorder has brought honeybees into the public eye. But the story of their plight — and its impact — is more complicated.
“Tending 100-year-old vines, I’ve been fortunate to craft highly rated, small production, estate grown wines since 1998. A labor of love, our wines are sustainably farmed, carry the story of my family in every glass and are simply the most satisfying of all my personal endeavors.”
Photo of a dog behind a chain-link fence at the Paws and More No Kill Animal Shelter in Washington, Iowa. I took this picture. This looks just like my dog Yuma. He was from a shelter in Evanston Il. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Pets killed in CA shelters in 2012*:
359,477
Taxes spent to house and kill:
$179,523,380.00
Stray and Lost Pets Killed on the streets in California:
“Here you can peruse the debate that followed the paper presenting the simulation argument. The original paper is here, as are popular synopses, scholarly papers commenting or expanding on or critiquing the first paper, and some replies by the author.
(The simulation argument continues to attract a great deal of attention. I apologize that I cannot usually respond to individual inquiries. I hope that you will find what you’re looking for on this page!)”
“Each spring, the start of the major league baseball season brings a fresh slate for teams and their fans, from the Green Monster in Boston to Dodger Dogs in Los Angeles. But as summer fades into the shorter days of autumn, the memories of a season past extend beyond the field, reaching into the slanted seats of the upper deck, onto the crowded sidewalks in front of a ballpark.
Photographer Ray Whitehouse, a graduate student at North Carolina, traveled approximately 18,000 miles over 85 days to visit the 30 major league ballparks to try to capture the game-day experience in each of these cities. The opportunity to watch each team on its home field, in front of its home crowd, kept Whitehouse on the road at one stretch for 43 days as he visited 21 stadiums. At each park, he purchased the cheapest available ticket. Armed with two cameras, he set out on a simple mission: to compile a portrait of America through a pastime that has so strongly influenced its identity.”
The Major League Baseball logo. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
“A native of Mexico, Flores came to Durham from California in the mid-90s when the Latino population was about 2,000 people, just 1 percent of the city’s population, according to a study by the Latino Migration Project at University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.
As Durham’s Hispanic population has grown to about 36,000 people – about 14 percent of the city’s 288,000 in 2010 – so did Flores and her business, with the help of a community intent on seeing Latinos integrate, succeed and mature.”
“In this week’s Chefs in Conversation video, Andrew Zimmern and Gail Simmons chatted about Jewish food traditions, including drinking shots of kosher pickle juice to help ensure a long life. While we can’t confirm that pickle juice will keep you young, the brine is definitely worth keeping around in the kitchen. Here, four ways to use it.”
