Thursday Reads

Good Morning!! For the past couple of days, I’ve been having a lot of trouble keeping myself from getting down in the dumps about all the bad news. So I’m going to stay away from the depressing stuf again this morning–hope you all don’t mind. You can feel free to link to serious news in the comments, though.

Here’s some good news. Glenn Beck’s daily show is coming to an end sometime this year. If you want to hear Beck’s explanation, you can watch him on video here. I couldn’t face watching it, but here’s part of the transcript.

“When I took this job I didn’t take it because it was going to be a career for me,” Beck explained to his audience. “Paul Revere did not get up on the horse and say, ‘I’m going to do this for the rest of my life.’ He didn’t do it. He got off his horse at some point and fought in the revolution, and then he went back to silver-smithing.”

Beck said the truth was he never really wanted to do the Fox show. He said he turned it down when first offered because he “hated doing it at the other place,” a reference to his earlier TV show on Turner Broadcasting’s HLN network.

He said FNC, by comparison, is “sweeeeeet!”

Beck said he ultimately took on the daily Fox TV show because “I thought I had something important to share. I really thought if I could prove my case that something wicked this way was coming, something in America was wrong, America would listen. And they have. I’m surprised both the number that have, and haven’t, even withal the facts.”

Something is wrong in America, all right, and Beck is part of it. The NYT has more backstory (i.e., gossip).

The negotiations that led Glenn Beck to announce his departure from the Fox News Channel on Wednesday ended with an expression of “let’s part as friends,” according to several people with knowledge of the talks. But behind that moment was a torrent of acrimony that underscored just how fractious the relationship between Mr. Beck and the network had become during his three-year run on Fox.

[….]

unhappy from almost his first day on the job, which happened to be the day before Mr. Obama was inaugurated. Even in his first year, he was contemplating an exit from Fox and wondering if he could start his own channel.

Beck supporters presented a picture of constant sniping, planted stories about his declining ratings, and discomfort with his ability to build a career for himself outside the Fox News brand.

From Fox’s perspective, the facts about Mr. Beck’s run on the network have been public and indisputable. Among those were the refusal of hundreds of Fox advertisers to allow their commercials to be placed on Mr. Beck’s program, and a history of incendiary comments that attracted harsh backlash, including one where the host called President Obama a racist and another where he compared Reform Judaism to radical Islam. (He later apologized for both comments.)

Here’s some good news if you like strawberries. A new study shows that strawberries may help people with esophageal cancer. From the Wall Street Journal:

The study’s lead researcher, Tong Chen, an assistant professor in the oncology division of Ohio State University, presented the study at the American Association for Cancer Research’s annual meeting.

Esophageal cancer is the third most common gastrointestinal cancer and the sixth most frequent cause of cancer death in the world, Dr. Chen said.

[….]

The research team designed a small study in humans and approached the California Strawberry Commission, which agreed to fund the study and make available the freeze-dried strawberries. The commission is a state agency funded by the strawberry industry.

Dr. Chen’s team recruited 38 people in China who had mild-to-moderate dysplasia in the esophagus; 36 people completed the study. Biopsies of the esophagus were taken before and after the study. On average, patients were about 55 years old.

They were instructed to consume 30 grams of freeze-dried strawberries dissolved in a glass of water twice daily for a total of 60 grams a day for six months. Dr. Chen said the freeze-dried substance is about 10 times as concentrated as fresh strawberries, but suggested people could still benefit from eating whole strawberries on a daily basis.

Overall, the results showed 29 out of 36 participants experienced a decrease in histological grade of the precancerous lesion, or a slowing in the growth of the lesion during the study.

This is interesting from Raw Story: Fermi lab may have found new force of nature.

Data from a major US atom smasher lab may have revealed a new elementary particle, or potentially a new force of nature, one of the physicists involved in the discovery told AFP on Wednesday.

The physics world was abuzz with excitement over the findings, which could offer clues to the persistent riddle of mass and how objects obtain it — one of the most sought-after answers in all of physics.

But experts cautioned that more analysis was needed over the next several months to uncover the true nature of the discovery, which comes as part of an ongoing experiment with proton and antiproton collisions to understand the workings of the universe.

“There could be some new force beyond the force that we know,” said Giovanni Punzi, a physicist with the international research team that is analyzing the data from the US Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory…. [but] researchers agree that this is not the “God Particle,” or the Higgs-boson, a hypothetical elementary particle which has long eluded physicists who believe it could explain why objects have mass.

I think it’s good news that Hillary is still our Secretary of State. Today she told Gaddafi where to go after he sent a bizarre letter to President Obama.

“I think that Gaddafi knows what he must do. There needs to be a ceasefire. His forces need to withdraw from the cities that they have forcibly taken at great violence and human cost,” Clinton told reporters at a joint press conference with her Italian counterpart Franco Frattini.

“There needs to be a decision made about his departure from power and, his departure from Libya. So I don’t think there is any mystery about what is expected from Gaddafi at this time. That is an international assessment. And the sooner that occurs and the bloodshed ends, the better it will be for everyone,” Clinton said following her meeting with Frattini at the Foggy Bottom headquarters of the state department.

Frattini said that a delegation form the African Union plans to visit Gaddafi and tell him it’s time to step down.

More good news: A priceless Gauguin painting has survived an attack by a patron at the National Gallery.

Screaming “This is evil,” a woman tried to pull Gauguin’s “Two Tahitian Women” from a gallery wall Friday and banged on the picture’s clear plastic covering, said Pamela Degotardi of New York, who was there.

“She was really pounding it with her fists,” Degotardi said. “It was like this weird surreal scene that one doesn’t expect at the National Gallery.”

Gallery spokeswoman Deborah Ziska said no damage to the 1899 painting was immediately apparent after the 4:45 p.m. incident. But she said a more thorough examination will be conducted Monday.

Have you ever seen a fisher cat? Actually they aren’t cats, but a member of the weasel family. Supposedly they have been seen in the area where I live. Some of my neighbors told me stories about them killing pets. These animals are really nasty and make a very creepy screeching sound.

Here’s some video of a fisher:

And a recording of a fisher screech:

Today there is a piece about fishers in the NYT: Do Fishers Really Eat Cats?

OK, this isn’t a good news story, but I like scary stuff so it appeals to me.

What are you reading and blogging about this morning? Don’t hold back!