from Bruce
Anecdotes
Education
• Haki R. Madhubuti came from a home that did not seem to be a breeding ground for success. His mother had a cleaning job that required her to sleep with the building owner. Later, she became a drunkard and then an addict to hard drugs and finally a prostitute to pay for the hard drugs. Mr. Madhubuti says about growing up, “Poetry in my home was almost as strange as money.” He avoided any bad effects of his upbringing because his mother sent him to the library to borrow and read Black Boy, a novel by Richard Wright. At first, he resisted because he didn’t to want to go up to a white librarian and request any book with the word “black” in the title. However, when he realized how important the book was to his mother, he borrowed the book and read it to please her. That book got him hooked on reading, and he became a prominent African-American poet.
• Louisa May Alcott, author of Little Women, grew up in a poor but ethical family. Her mother taught her to live by these rules: “1. Rule yourself. 2. Love your neighbor. 3. Hope, and keep busy.” On her fourth birthday, young Louisa passed out servings of plum cake to the guests at her party. Unfortunately, the little guests outnumbered the servings of plum cake, and someone would have to go without. Since it was her birthday, Louisa wanted plum cake, even though one of the little guests would go without, but her mother told her, “I know my Lou will not let the little friend go without.” Louisa did give the plum cake to her friend, and her mother rewarded her with a kiss. Louisa called this incident her “first lesson in the sweetness of self-denial.”
• Jonathan Swift had a bad habit of not tipping. Once, a boy delivered a package to Dean Swift. Because he knew that he would not receive a tip, the delivery boy’s manners were abrupt. Dean Swift told the boy that he needed to learn some manners, and so for educational purposes he told the boy to pretend to be Dean Swift while he pretended to be the delivery boy. Dean Swift then said, “Sir, Mr. Brown has sent you this package of fruit and begs you to accept it.” The delivery boy said, “Tell Mr. Brown that I accept the package with great thanks, and here’s half a crown for yourself.” Having learned his lesson, Dean Swift smiled, then gave the delivery boy half a crown.
• Children’s author Jane Yolen began reading and writing at an early age — and kept right on going. In the first grade, she read overnight a book that the students were supposed to read for an entire semester, so the teacher moved her up to the second grade, where she wrote the words and music to the class play. The play featured vegetables, and in the big finale they came together and formed a salad. While attending Smith College, she wrote in verse a final exam essay about American intellectual history — and got an A! And on her 22nd birthday, she sold her first real book.
• Young-people’s author Richard Peck had a tough English teacher named Miss Franklin during his senior year in high school. On the students’ first day of class, she announced, “I can get all of you in this room into the colleges of your choice — or I can keep you out.” When he handed in his first composition in her course, she wrote on it, “Never express yourself again on my time. Find a more interesting topic.” Seventeen-year-old Richard asked her what would be a more interesting topic than himself. She replied, “Almost anything.”
• A friend of young-people’s author William Sleator was a very good student and wrote very good papers. In fact, one paper was so good that a teacher new to the school gave her an F because he thought it was plagiarized. She did not protest, but after the teacher gave an in-class writing assignment and read her paper, which was excellent and which the teacher knew could not have been plagiarized, the teacher apologized to the student and raised the F he had previously given her to an A.
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© Copyright Bruce D. Bruce; All Rights Reserved
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Presenting
Michael Egan
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION
BANDCAMP MUSIC
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION OF BANDCAMP MUSIC
Music: "Desert Sand"
Album: THIS IS KOKO
Artist: Trio Koko
Artist Location: Dordrecht, Netherlands
Info:
“Roots and bluesy stuff on bass, drums, and a guitar with and without vocals. That, in a nutshell is what the Dutch band Koko is about.”
“The members of the band, Ton van der Kolk, Timothy van der Holst and Ron Smith, are smokin’ — white hot — tuned into the same primal source … the blues.”
“Check out the Koko demo-CD KOKO GOES BLUES, on which you’ll find songs like that. Or listen to their first CD THIS IS KOKO, full of instrumental surf-cocktail tunes. “
Price: €1 (EURO) for track; €5 (EURO) for eight-track album
Genre: Rock Instrumentals.
Links:
THIS IS KOKO
Trio Koko on Bandcamp
Other Links:
Bruce’s Music Recommendations: FREE pdfs
David Bruce's Amazon Author Page
David Bruce's Smashwords Page
David Bruce's Blog #1
David Bruce's Blog #2
David Bruce's Blog #3
David Bruce's Apple iBookstore
David Bruce has over 140 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Stephen Suggests
Twofer
Texasistan to Oregon to Oklahomastan
New Venture
Michael Egan
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION
Mrs. Betty Bowers
Other Links:
David Bruce's Amazon Author Page
David Bruce's Smashwords Page
David Bruce's Blog #1
David Bruce's Blog #2
David Bruce's Blog #3
David Bruce's Apple iBookstore
David Bruce has over 140 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
Reader Comment
Current Events
"Liberal" giving
My reasoning may be faulty, but it's mine--most charities make a big push for donations in December so people can do last-minute tax write-offs. Having gathered all those donations in December, they find donations plummet in January as people focus on paying Christmas bills. So I make my annual contributions to charities in January.
As well as monthly support to Marty, I give to the below. Please consider whether you can support them too:
that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
The golden rain trees - they grow the little orange-red lantern-shaped seed pods - are finally losing their leaves, right on schedule.
Digital Release
‘Get Back’
The audition is finally here. The Beatles’ famous farewell rooftop concert is finally getting its digital audio release.
Get Back: The Rooftop Performance will have the complete 40-minute gig, with new mixes in stereo & Dolby Atmos by Giles Martin and Sam Okell. It’s available for streaming at midnight ET on Friday, January 28 from Apple Corps Ltd./Capitol/UMe. This marks the first-ever release for the January 1969 roof show, in the wake of the Peter Jackson docuseries Get Back and the expanded Special Edition box of Let It Be.
“We wanted to put it on the box set,” Giles Martin tells Rolling Stone in an exclusive interview. “But it just took up too much real estate. It’s 40 minutes, so it didn’t make any sense. But the response to Get Back has been so extraordinary.”
Get Back: The Rooftop Performance debuts just in time for the show’s anniversary on January 30th, 1969, at the end of the sessions. The Beatles went up on the roof of their Apple headquarters in London, as crowds gathered in the streets below, until the show got shut down by the police. Three of the roof performances made it on to the finished Let It Be album: “I’ve Got a Feeling,” “Dig a Pony,” and “One After 909.” It turned out to be the last time the Beatles ever played live in public.
‘Get Back’
Trades Dress For Pantsuit
Minnie Mouse
The debut of Minnie Mouse's first-ever pantsuit has prompted many people on social media to criticize the character's new fit.
On Tuesday, Disneyland Paris announced Minnie was temporarily ditching her iconic red-and-white polka dot dress in honor of Disneyland Paris' 30th anniversary. She will also wear it in honor of Women’s History Month this March.
Minnie will instead sport a navy blue pantsuit with black polka dots and her signature bow created by British fashion designer Stella McCartney.
“I wanted Minnie to wear her very first pantsuit at Disneyland Paris, so I have designed one of my iconic costumes—a blue tuxedo—using responsibly sourced fabrics," McCartney said in a statement published by D23, the official Disney fan club.
Minnie Mouse
To Open In November
Studio Ghibli Theme Park
The Japanese theme park, based on the works of the Miyazaki Hayao-led animation firm Studio Ghibli, has set Nov. 1, 2022, as the date for its official opening.
Having previously teased ‘Fall 2022’ as the park debut, Studio Ghibli announced the confirmed date in a simple tweet alongside an image of its Totoro character.
The park is being built within the Expo 2005 Aichi Commemorative Park, near Nagoya in Central Japan on a site that is 200 hectares (494 acres). That puts it about three hours from downtown Tokyo by train.
Local media in Japan report that there will be rides, but not large-scale rollercoasters. Nature trails are favored instead, and Miyazaki has reportedly insisted that no trees be cut down.
Studio Ghibli Theme Park
Botticelli, Goya, Gentileschi
Old Masters Auction
On Thursday morning, Sotheby’s held its marquee Old Masters sale in New York that generated $76 million on the hammer (or $91 million with buyer’s fees). While the result met expectations, landing within the pre-sale estimate range of $73.1 million–$88.6 million, the amount rang in quite a bit below last year’s equivalent sale total of $114.5 million (with fees), which was the highest total for an Old Masters evening sale achieved in the house’s history.
Sotheby’s Old Master paintings specialist David Pollack took to the rostrum to lead the sale, which took place at the house’s York Avenue headquarters. Though the sale room drew a packed crowd with bidders participating on the floor, the tone of the room was focused and subdued—typical of a category that attracts a more academic crowd to its sales. The 55-lot auction saw a below-average sell-through rate of 74.5 percent, will 41 lots selling. Two paintings, including a scene of castle ruins by 17th-century Dutch painter Jacob van Ruisdael, were withdrawn before the sale’s start.
As has become typical at major auctions, 11 works, among them pictures by Sandro Botticelli, Peter van Mol, and Bellini, were backed by financial guarantees, meaning if they failed to sell at the sale, a buyer had already been secured. Together, these 11 works brought in a total of $63 million (with buyer’s fees), accounting for a bulky 70 percent of the sale’s $91 million total.
The top lot of the sale was a portrait of a thorn-crowned Christ by Sandro Botticelli. Dating from ca. 1500, Man of Sorrows was backed by an irrevocable bid and sold for $45.4 million (with fees). It had hammered at $39.3 million, just below its expectation of $40 million, and went to a buyer on the phone with Sotheby’s New York Old Masters specialist Elizabeth Lobkowicz. Her client beat out another determined bidder on the phone with another specialist, Christopher Apostle, to win the work. Nearly 60 years ago, Man of Sorrows sold at auction for £10,000, where the seller, an anonymous American, purchased it.
Old Masters Auction
Unfolding Incident
National Butterfly Center
Right-wing conspiracy theorists have already decided that pizza, furniture, and pictures of corn are all part of the vast secret and silent war between good and evil. So moving on to claiming that butterflies are part of the deep state isn’t a surprise. But a bizarre and still unfolding incident at the National Butterfly Center in Mission, Texas isn’t just proof that conspiracy theorists see patterns in noise, but that social media hysteria and anti-immigrant sentiment can combine for terrible and violent results.
The National Butterfly Center, located less than a half-mile from the U.S.-Mexico border, is a battlefield in the conflict over President Donald Trump’s proposed border wall, which is still being built through federally protected land just south of the Center. But this week, the conflict took a distinctly more conspiratorial—and disturbing—tone when, according to an email blast put out by the Center, it was forced to close for three days “due to credible threats we have received from a former state official.”
Center director Marianna Wright “was advised by [a] former state official (whose daughter is the Hidalgo County GOP chairperson) that she should be armed at all times or out of town this weekend,” due to a caravan of attendees at a MAGA-themed border security conference taking place in McAllen, Texas, eight miles away, that same weekend. The “We Stand America” event is scheduled to feature speeches from a host of luminaries in the stolen election/QAnon/anti-vaccine/MAGA universe/build-the-wall universe, including disgraced former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, “Stop the Steal” advocate Rep. Mark Finchem (R-Ariz.), stolen election figurehead Patrick Byrne, and QAnon promoter Mel K.
The email from the Center makes it clear that the grounds themselves are in direct danger from conference attendees who intend to form a “rolling car protest,” described as a ’Trump Train’-style “caravan to the border” that will likely make a stop at the National Butterfly Center. The Center’s location just minutes away from the Rio Grande has made it a hotbed of conspiracy theories and rumors, which claim it’s a hub of drug smuggling and human trafficking. Many of these rumors are pushed by Brian Kolfage, the leader of an eight-figure fundraising effort to privately build Trump’s border wall
National Butterfly Center
US Navy
"Fat Leonard"
A US Navy Commander has pleaded guilty to receiving $250,000 in cash and prostitution services from a foreign defence contractor in exchange for state secrets.
Information Commander Stephen Shedd provided to the firm helped it defraud the navy of $35bn (£26.1bn).
The plea is the latest in the 'Fat Leonard' case, considered one of the worst corruption scandals faced by the navy.
A total of 34 naval officials, defence contractors and GDMA employees, including Francis, have been charged with crimes related to the scheme. Of these, 28 have pleaded guilty, including two other 7th fleet officers.
"Fat Leonard" himself is expected to testify in the February trial of the officers.
"Fat Leonard"
Museum Returns Remains
Indian Island Massacre
The most vulnerable members of the Wiyot Tribe were asleep the morning of Feb. 26, 1860, when a band of white men slipped into their Northern California villages under darkness and slaughtered them.
Many of the children, women and elderly slain in what became known as the Indian Island Massacre had their eternal rest disturbed when their graves were later dug up and their skeletons and the artifacts buried with them were placed in a museum.
The bones of the Wiyot were recovered in 1953 after being discovered near where a jetty was constructed outside the city of Eureka, 225 miles (362 kilometers) north of San Francisco, according to a notice last year in the Federal Register.
A team from University of California, Berkeley collected the remains and put them in storage with 136 artifacts buried with them — mainly beads and ornaments made from shells, an arrowhead from a broken bottle fragment, a sinker for a fishing net, bone tools and an elk tooth.
A young Bret Harte, who would go on to become one of the most popular writers of the day, wrote a scathing editorial about the bloodshed in The Northern Californian, a newspaper in the city just to the north.
Indian Island Massacre
Trust Now Deeply Polarized
Science
Republicans’ faith in science is falling as Democrats rely on it even more, with a trust gap in science and medicine widening substantially during the COVID-19 pandemic, new survey data shows.
It’s the largest gap in nearly five decades of polling by the General Social Survey, a widely respected trend survey conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago that has been measuring confidence in institutions since 1972.
“We are living at a time when people would rather put urine or cleaning chemicals in their body than scientifically vetted vaccines,” University of Georgia meteorology professor Marshall Shepherd told the AP in an email. “That is a clear convergence of fear, lack of critical thinking, confirmation bias and political tribalism.”
Science used to be something all Americans would get behind, Rice University historian Douglas Brinkley said.
“But we now see it falling prey to the great partisan divide,” he said. “The world of science should be a meeting house where right and left can agree on data. Instead, it’s becoming a sharp razor’s edge of conflict.”
Science
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