Andrew Tobias: Talk About Crazy Coincidences!
There are a quarter billion adult Americans, some small percentage of whom are, or at least might be, corrupt - say 1%? (Two and a half million.) Isn't it an amazing coincidence that the one - and only! - possibly-corrupt person out of all those two and a half million whose possible corruption the President sent his personal attorney and the Attorney General of the United States all over Europe to investigate - just happened to be drum-roll please (and this is why I think you'll agree it's a crazy, crazy coincidence) ° his leading political opponent?
Andrew Tobias: Short Takes
Back in Arkansas, the Clintons lost $30,000 (of their own money) in Whitewater. Trump - while President - has directed millions (of our tax dollars) to himself.
Dan Kennedy: Local Radio Follows Local Newspapers Down The Drain Of Corporate Chain Ownership (WGBH NEWS)
Local radio stations, like local newspapers, are under siege. Newspapers are struggling because the internet undermined the value of advertising and because social media proved more alluring than the latest goings-on at city hall. Likewise, radio is fighting to be heard in an audioscape increasingly dominated by streaming services and podcasts. But radio and newspapers have something else in common, too: Corporate greed is making their problems much worse and preventing the kind of investments that are needed to position them for the future.
Rice-A-Roni is a product of PepsiCo's subsidiary the Quaker Oats Company. It is a pilaf-like boxed food mix that consists of rice, vermicelli pasta, and seasonings. To prepare, the rice and pasta are browned in butter, then water and seasonings are added and simmered until absorbed.
In 1895, Italian-born immigrant Domenico ("Charlie") DeDomenico moved to California, where he set up a fresh produce store. A successful businessman, he married Maria Ferrigno from Salerno, Italy. Back home, her family owned a pasta factory, so in 1912 she persuaded him to set up a similar business in the Mission District of San Francisco. The enterprise became known as Gragnano Products, Inc. It delivered pasta to Italian stores and restaurants in the area.
DeDomenico's sons, Paskey, Vince (1915-2007), Tom, and Anthony, worked with him. In 1934, Paskey changed the name to Golden Grain Macaroni Company. Tom's wife, Lois, was inspired by the pilaf recipe she received from Armenian immigrant Mrs. Pailadzo Captanian, to create a dish of rice and macaroni, which she served at a family dinner. In 1958, Vince invented Rice-A-Roni by adding a dry chicken soup mix to rice and macaroni. It was introduced in 1958 in the Northwestern United States and went nationwide four years later. Because of its origins, it was called "The San Francisco Treat!".
Source
mj replied:
Ding, ding
A mix of rice, seasoning, and bits of vermicelli, a fusion dish,
Rice-a-roni, still available on grocery store shelves nation wide.
Dave wrote:
Rice-A-Roni. A mixture of rice, fried vermicelli in consumer provided butter, and seasonings. The San Francisco reference is because the original company, the Golden Grain Macaroni Company, was based in that city. It was not a long time regional dish. Rice-A-Roni now includes more varieties than the original chicken soup flavor version.
Cal in Vermont said:
Rice-A-Roni. The TV ad was complete with dressed-up housewife with a paper (if you please) bag of groceries with a box of the product visible at the top alighting from a bell-ringing trolley driven by a smiling motorman. I think the point of the whole thing was to piss off Oregon with their damn potatoes.
Adam answered:
Rice-A-Roni, seasoned rice and pasta mix
Jon L replied:
Rice a Roni
zorch responded:
Rice-a-roni, the college student's survival food.
Kevin K. in Washington, DC, wrote:
Rice-a-Roni
The flavor can't be beat.
Jim from CA, retired to ID, said:
Rice-a-roni
Deborah answered:
That's easy - Rice-a-Roni. I thought as a kid, watching the commercials, it was a special, exotic rice dish. Wrong! Catchy tune, though.
Micki responded:
Rice-a-Roni.
Dave in Tucson replied:
Rice a Roni
David of Moon Valley wrote:
Rice-A-Roni is it or it is .
and what do we have for our winning contestants today, Dave?
John I from Hawai`i says,
Rice a Roni
Roy, the Never Trumper Snowflake from Tyler, TX replied:
The San Francisco treat was Rice-a-Roni. My mom tried it once. None of us liked it. Now some 50+ years later, I still have no inclination to see if it got any better. I like rice, and I like all kinds of pasta, but the two of 'em together somehow seems kinda strange.
Harry M. said:
Rice-a-Roni
Michelle in AZ answered:
Rice-a-Roni
Daniel in The City took the day off.
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BttbBob has returned to semi-retired status.
~~~~~
Song: "James Bond Theme" from the album FLAT BOTTOM COLD GREASER
Artist: The Weisstronauts
Artist Location: Boston, Massachusetts
Info: "The Boston-based Weisstronauts are a difficult-to-pigeonhole instrumental rock band employing three electric guitars."
"Then there's the Weisstronauts, who toss major surf rock influences into a blender with everything else they've ever even sort of liked and pull out songs built on combinations that look insane on paper but absolutely kill once you hear them." - Richard Bouchard, Boston Band Crush
Pete Weiss: guitars
Kenny Lafler: guitars
Jeff Norcross: guitars, bass, drums
Kevin Quinn: bass
Nate Logus: drums
Price: $1 (USD) for track; $10 (USD) for 12-track album
People respond to music in different, but often witty, ways: 1) John Cage's 4'33" is a composition that can be performed by anyone any way he or she wishes as long as the performance takes exactly 4 minutes and 33 seconds. A notable performance of the piece involved a pianist sitting at a piano for exactly 4 minutes and 33 seconds without striking a single key. After hearing about this performance, Igor Stravinsky said that he wished to hear a full-length composition by Mr. Cage. 2) George Bernard Shaw once ate at a restaurant where a band played popular music. The proprietor of the restaurant brought him a card on which he could write what he wanted the band to play. Mr. Shaw wrote, "Dominoes."
Many people in ballet are witty: 1) Ballet dancer George Zoritch was once requested to give a speech, even if it were only two words long. Therefore, he stood up and said, "One! Two!" His speech was rewarded with laughter. 2) Ballet dancer Igor Youskevitch once told a beautiful waitress, "If I may be so bold, a martini is like a beautiful girl's bosom. One is not enough, but three is too many!" 3) Pavel Petroff had a dry wit as a Russian ballet teacher. Sometimes, he would tell some of the students in his class, "A ballerina you will never make, but a seamstress, perhaps!"
Many critics are witty: 1) Eugene d'Albert was asked to read and express his opinion of a piano concerto by German composer Max Vogrich. Mr. d'Albert looked at the concerto closely and then stated his opinion: "The ink and paper are excellent." By the way, an English lord became known as Lord Monday because he fell in love with German operatic soprano Henrietta Sontag and followed her the way that Monday follows Sunday. (Sonntag means Sunday.) 2) A critic wrote these puns in the 1870 Musical Standard: "We hang on every note Madame Sontag sings - / This proves the lady's great powers of execution."
Tom Waits has been a successful singer-songwriter for decades, but he is far from being a sell-out, in more ways than one. In her book Tom Waits, Cath Carroll includes a discography but does not include information about how high the songs or albums reached on the record charts. Mr. Carroll writes, " noting chart positions on a Tom Waits discography is like putting Barbie clothes on a bulldog." By the way, Mr. Waits can be witty. He once said, "She's been married so many times she's got rice marks all over her face."
Paul Beard used to lead the orchestra for Sir Thomas Beecham. Later, he led a different orchestra - the BBC Symphony Orchestra - upon which he stamped his personality and at which Sir Thomas was asked to be a guest conductor. At the end of a rehearsal, Sir Thomas stood in front of the orchestra, stroked his goatee, and said, "May I suggest to you, gentlemen, that when we reassemble, you pay a little more attention to this beard?"
Sir William S. Gilbert was funny in real life. Once, an obese lady attended one of his rehearsals. While his back was turned, she disappeared, so Sir William asked a stagehand where she had gone. The stagehand pointed to some scenery and said, "She's round behind." Sir William replied, "I asked you for her geography, not her description."
Locally, CBS & ABC bailed on covering the hearings before 1pm, and NBC hung on until 2pm.
Only PBS carried it in its entirety.
I'm so old I can remember when "public interest, convenience, and necessity" didn't mean Dr. Phil, Tamron Hall, Kelly Clarkson, and Ellen are more important than the impeachment of a president.
Bread & circuses.
Tonight, Friday:
CBS begins the night with a RERUN'Hawaii Five-0', followed by a RERUN'Magnum PU', then a RERUN'Blue Bloods'.
On a RERUNStephen Colbert (from 1/9/20) are Sen. Bernie Sanders and Penn Badgley.
On a RERUNJames Corden, OBE, (from 12/9/19) with guest host Alicia Keys are Billie Eilish and Ali Wong.
NBC fills the night with FRESH'US Figure Skating Championships'.
Scheduled on a FRESHJimmy Fallon are Milo Ventimiglia, Guy Raz, and Carmen Lynch.
On a RERUNSeth Meyers (from 1/9/20) are Larry David and Caitlin Kalafus.
On a RERUNLilly Singh (from 12/11/19) is John Legend.
ABC opens the night with a FRESH'American Housewife', followed by a FRESH'Fresh Off The Boat', then '20/20'.
On a RERUNJimmy Kimmel (from 1/16/20) are Al Pacino, Florence Pugh, and Nicky Jam featuring Daddy Yankee.
The CW offers a FRESH'Charmed', followed by a FRESH'Dynasty'.
Faux fills the night with FRESH'WWE Friday Night SmackDown'.
MY recycles an old 'CSI: Miami', followed by another old 'CSI: Miami'.
A&E has 'Live PD', followed by a FRESH'Live PD: Rewind', then a FRESH'Live PD'.
AMC offers the movie 'Ghostbusters II', followed by the movie 'I Am Legend', then the movie 'Safe House'.
BBC -
[6:00AM] DIRK GENTLY'S HOLISTIC DETECTIVE AGENCY - Space Rabbit
[7:00AM] DIRK GENTLY'S HOLISTIC DETECTIVE AGENCY Fans of Wet Circles
[8:00AM] DOCTOR WHO - Human Nature-Part 1.
[9:00AM] DOCTOR WHO - The Family Of Blood-Part 2.
[10:00AM] DOCTOR WHO - Blink
[11:00AM] DOCTOR WHO - Utopia
[12:05PM] DOCTOR WHO - The Sound Of Drums-Part 1.
[1:10PM] DOCTOR WHO - Last of the Time Lords-Part 2.
[2:15PM] DOCTOR WHO: VOYAGE OF THE DAMNED
[3:45PM] DOCTOR WHO - Partners in Crime
[4:50PM] DOCTOR WHO - The Fires of Pompeii
[5:55PM] DOCTOR WHO - Planet of the Ood
[7:00PM] ACE VENTURA: PET DETECTIVE (1994)
[9:00PM] ACE VENTURA: WHEN NATURE CALLS (1995)
[11:00PM] THE GRAHAM NORTON SHOW
[12:00AM] ACE VENTURA: PET DETECTIVE (1994)
[2:00AM] ACE VENTURA: WHEN NATURE CALLS (1995)
[4:00AM] ACE VENTURA: PET DETECTIVE (1994) (ALL TIMES EST)
Bravo has all old 'Chrisley Knows Best' all night.
Comedy Central has 2 hours of old 'South Park', followed by 'The Comedy Central Roast Of Rob Lowe'.
FX has the movie 'The Amazing Spider-Man', followed by the movie 'Ride Along 2', then the movie 'Ride Along 2', again.
History has 'Ancient Aliens', followed by a FRESH'Ancient Aliens: Declassified'.
IFC -
[7:30A] Grindhouse Presents: Death Proof
[10:00A] 1408
[12:15P] The Mist
[3:00P] That '70s Show
[3:30P] That '70s Show
[4:00P] That '70s Show
[4:30P] That '70s Show
[5:00P] That '70s Show
[5:30P] That '70s Show
[6:00P] Two and a Half Men
[6:30P] Two and a Half Men
[7:00P] Two and a Half Men
[7:30P] Two and a Half Men
[8:00P] Two and a Half Men
[8:30P] Two and a Half Men
[9:00P] Two and a Half Men
[9:30P] Two and a Half Men
[10:00P] Two and a Half Men
[10:30P] Two and a Half Men
[11:00P] Two and a Half Men
[11:30P] Two and a Half Men
[12:00A] Two and a Half Men
[12:30A] Two and a Half Men
[1:00A] That '70s Show
[1:30A] That '70s Show
[2:00A] That '70s Show
[2:30A] 1408
[4:45A] The Three Stooges - Back to the Woods
[4:55A] Mystery Science Theater 3000 - Santa Claus (ALL TIMES EST)
Sundance -
[6:00am] The Andy Griffith Show
[6:35am] The Andy Griffith Show
[7:10am] The Andy Griffith Show
[7:45am] The Andy Griffith Show
[8:20am] The Andy Griffith Show
[8:55am] The Andy Griffith Show
[9:30am] The Andy Griffith Show
[10:00am] Rosewood
[1:00pm] Law & Order
[2:00pm] Law & Order
[3:00pm] Law & Order
[4:00pm] Law & Order
[5:00pm] Law & Order
[6:00pm] Law & Order
[7:00pm] Law & Order
[8:00pm] Law & Order
[9:00pm] Law & Order
[10:00pm] Law & Order
[11:00pm] Law & Order
[12:00am] Law & Order
[1:00am] Law & Order
[2:00am] Law & Order
[3:00am] Rosewood (ALL TIMES EST)
SyFy has the movie 'RIPD', followed by the movie 'GI Joe: The Rise Of Cobra'.
Fifty-four years after illegally crossing the U.S. border in a Pontiac hearse, Neil Young has become an American citizen.
"I'm happy to report I'm in!" the Canadian-born musician wrote on his website after months of struggle to obtain his dual citizenship. Young explained to fans that the process had been delayed because of the "good moral character" provision on the immigrant application - meaning he admitted to smoking weed.
On Wednesday afternoon, Young and his wife, actress Daryl Hannah, obtained his naturalization documents at the Convention Center in downtown Los Angeles. He celebrated in a video on his Instagram, singing "I'm proud to be a Canarican" in the tune of "God Bless the U.S.A." while waving around miniature American and Canadian flags.
Young kicked off 2020 by detailing upcoming archive releases on his website, including concert films like 1990's Way Down in the Rust Bucket and 2003's Greendale Live. He's also planning to release the long-awaited legendary LP Homegrown, and a live album with his 1977 Santa Cruz supergroup, the Ducks.
He recently answered a new batch of fan letters on his site, candidly stating that while he has no current plans to tour, he will appear at Stephen Stills' Light Up the Blues benefit concert for Autism Speaks in the spring.
Cynthia Erivo, Elton John, Idina Menzel, Chrissy Metz and Randy Newman will peform their Oscar-nominated songs at the 92nd Oscar ceremony, which takes place February 9 live on ABC from the Dolby Theater at Hollywood & Highland.
"We're excited to have an incredible group of nominees and performers who will deliver one-of-a-kind music moments you will only see on the Oscars," show producers Lynette Howell Taylor and Stephanie Allain said Thursday.
The producers said today that the hostless Oscarcast will also feature a special appearance by Questlove, and a guest-conducted segment by Eνmear Noone, who will become the first woman to conduct during an Oscars telecast.
The performers announced today are all nominated in the Original Song category.
The famed portraits of former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama will soon be more accessible than ever before. The two paintings will go on tour next year, the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., announced this week.
Both portraits have received an unprecedented public response, the museum says. So they will be going on a five-city tour beginning in June 2021, allowing more viewers to see them firsthand.
Mr. Obama's portrait, by Kehinde Wiley, and Mrs. Obama's portrait, by Amy Sherald, will first travel to the couple's former home, Chicago. The portraits will then visit Brooklyn, Los Angeles, Atlanta and Houston, staying in each city for about two months each.
The national tour will end in May 2022. In addition to the portraits, the traveling exhibit will also include audio-visual elements, teacher workshops, curatorial presentations, and a richly illustrated book from the National Portrait Gallery and Princeton University Press
US financier and philanthropist George Soros on Thursday pledged one billion dollars for a new university network project to battle the erosion of civil society in a world increasingly ruled by "would-be and actual dictators" and beset by climate change.
Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Soros said humanity was at a turning point and the coming years would determine the fate of rulers like President Donald Trump and China's Xi Jinping as well as the world itself.
He described the plan of the Open Society University Network (OSUN) as "the most important project of my life" and would be an international platform for teaching and research that existing universities all over the world would be able to join.
It would seek to reach out to "places in need of high quality education and in serving neglected populations" such as refugees, prisoners, the Roma and other displaced peoples like the Rohingya Muslim minority in Myanmar, he said.
He expressed grief that the world's strongest powers -- the United States, China and Russia under President Vladimir Putin -- were "in the hands of would-be or actual dictators and the ranks of authoritarian rulers continued to grow."
Teen climate change activist Greta Thunberg often brings out the worst in her adult critics. When she visited the U.S. in September of last year, Fox News's Laura Ingraham compared her to the murderous pre-teens in Children of the Corn. Former Trump adviser Sebastian Gorka called her brainwashed and said her parents should be brought up on child abuse charges. Right-wing Daily Wire podcaster Michael Knowles said she was "mentally ill." And Donald Trump (R-Puppet) himself has frequently mocked her on Twitter, most recently tweeting, in typical Trumpian projection, that she "must work on her Anger Management problem."
Given his boss's approach, it's not surprising that 57-year-old treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin would resort to ad hominem attacks on the young activist. This week, Mnuchin and Thunberg are both at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and a reporter asked the secretary about how combatting climate change would affect the U.S. economy.
The Post followed up with an actual economist, the extremely credentialed Gernot Wagner who has a master's degree in economics from Stanford University, a master's in political economy and government from Harvard, and a PhD in political economy and government also from Harvard. Wagner sides with Thunberg, saying that economics is exactly where one front of the fight against climate change needs to play out. "It's Economics 101 that tells us that when there is a difference between private costs and costs to society, that difference ought to be included in one's decision-making. And when I say ought, of course the private individual won't; it's up to somebody in a position of power-let's say the secretary of Treasury-to want to guide economic policy in the right direction."
For his own education, Mnuchin attended Yale University, where, presumably, he learned the basic economics that helped him earn the nickname "Foreclosure King." According to David Dayen, a reporter for The Intercept, a 2013 memo from top prosecutors to California's attorney general accused OneWest Bank, where Mnuchin was CEO and chairman as well as a partial owner, of repeatedly breaking foreclosure laws, claiming that the bank "rushed delinquent homeowners out of their homes by violating notice and waiting period statutes, illegally backdated key documents, and effectively gamed foreclosure auctions." An audit found that OneWest also violated the Service Members Civil Relief Act by initiating foreclosures on the homes of the families of 54 active duty service members. The bank also attempted to foreclose on the home of a 90-year-old woman for being 27 cents behind on a payment.
Mnuchin, who's worth an estimated $400 million according to Forbes, has also repeatedly insisted that tax cuts pay for themselves, a claim which has yet to bear out. Despite this, Mnuchin also announced at Davos that the Trump administration working on a second round of massive tax cuts.
We're not even through the first month of 2020, and we already broke the record for the day with the most carbon dioxide in all of human history.
Carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere hit 415.79 parts per million (ppm) at Mauna Loa Observatory on Tuesday. It's not surprising carbon dioxide levels hit a new daily high, but the new atmospheric record underscores the fact that carbon emissions are rising to new all-time highs when they need to be dropping.
Atmospheric carbon dioxide follow seesaw pattern over the course of a year, rising from fall into spring as plants decay and then declining over the summer as plants grow and suck carbon out of the atmosphere. The cycle has been driven by natural processes for all of human existence until the world began emitting carbon dioxide. Now, the seesaw still exists but it's been steadily rising with each passing year of continued carbon emissions. The daily record on Tuesday recorded at Mauna Loa Observatory, the gold standard of measuring sites, is an indicator of more records to come in the next few months. The monthly carbon dioxide record is usually set in March or April, though last year's happened in February owing to human activities that burn fossil fuels.
Scientists can take a long view of carbon dioxide by looking at air trapped in ice cores to understand what the atmosphere of the past looked like. Those record stretch back 800,000 years, as long as humans have walked the Earth. For most of those 800,000 years, average carbon dioxide levels stayed beneath 280 ppm. Things started changing quickly during the industrial era, when humans started burning fossil fuels. The atmosphere humanity has created to day pre-dates our very existence by millions of years.
Despite the clear risks a more carbon dioxide-laden atmosphere poses, emissions are rising faster and faster. As long as humans continue emitting carbon, we're guaranteed to keep setting new milestones. Just last May, we crossed 415 ppm for the first time ever. That record topped the previous one, which we hit just three months prior. We never even crossed 400 ppm before 2015.
In the fall of 2017, a National Rifle Association lobbyist named Benjamin Cassidy left his job at the influential gun group. His next stop: a top position at the US interior department, which oversees hundreds of millions of acres of federal land across the country.
Once in office, it didn't take Cassidy long to use his new government gig to provide his longtime NRA colleagues with special access to the powerful federal agency, as revealed by previously unreleased communications obtained by the Guardian.
In 2017, for instance, Susan LaPierre, a prominent NRA member and the wife of NRA leader Wayne LaPierre, was appointed by the head of the interior department to the board of the National Parks Foundation, a congressionally chartered organization that supports park programs.
The interior secretary, David Bernhardt, has also made multiple appearances on NRA media channels in recent years, and in June he announced a proposal to open more than 1.4m acres of national wildlife refuge land to hunting and fishing activities. The NRA celebrated the move, calling it a "proposal supported and encouraged by the NRA".
But Benjamin Cassidy is the official that most embodies the NRA's influence at the interior department.
Employees at a vineyard in the heart of California's wine country discovered with dismay on Wednesday that one of their giant tanks had opened - and Cabernet Sauvignon was gushing out.
Just over 97,000 gallons of the wine - enough to fill eight tanker trucks - spilled after the door of a blending tank popped open at the Rodney Strong Winery.
Some of that alcohol has entered the local water system, Chris O'Gorman, a spokesman for Rodney Strong Winery, confirmed to Business Insider.
It flowed "out of the building, with a portion entering a creek at the winery," he said. That waterway, Reiman Creek, feeds into the Russian River - a popular recreation destination and wildlife habitat.
The exact quantity of wine that entered the Russian River is unknown - city officials are still assessing the impact. The Sonoma County sheriff's office is even using a helicopter to track the spill. Early estimates suggest, however, that between 46,000 and 96,000 gallons of wine reached the river.
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