Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Tom Danehy: These are dark days for the UA football team (Tucson Weekly)
Zen Buddhists pose the koan "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" The semi-enlightened will contend that it is the sound of one hand closing very rapidly while others know that it is the sound of Sarah Huckabee Sanders telling the truth.
Helaine Olen: Elizabeth Warren shines at Nevada candidates forum (Washington Post)
The senator from Massachusetts connected all the dots to point to the both all-encompassing and systemic nature of the issues facing American workers. "There's a lot that's broken in America," she said, adding that corporations can currently roll over communities, employees and customers, without anyone doing much about it. How to change it? "We need more power in the hands of employees," she proclaimed. She then went on to tout her "structural" solutions, things that include her wealth tax that would pay for a significant student loan forgiveness and universal child care (among other things) as well as a plan to allow workers to vote on who should hold 40 percent of the seats on their company's board of directors, something that she believes would make companies more cognizant of their employees' pay and working conditions.
Elizabeth Warren: Corporate executives must face jail time for overseeing massive scams (Washington Post)
Opening unauthorized bank accounts. Cheating customers on mortgages and car loans. Mistreating service members. If you can dream up a financial scam, there's a good chance that Wells Fargo ran it on its customers in recent years. Last week, after years of pressure, the company finally parted ways with its second chief executive in three years. But that's not nearly enough accountability. It's time to reform our laws to make sure that corporate executives face jail time for overseeing massive scams.
Noah Berlatsky: The Case Against Empathizing With Trump Supporters (Medium)
Empathy isn't the solution to our political crisis. It's a major cause.
Andrew Pulver: Anjelica Huston defends Woody Allen and Roman Polanski (The Guardian)
Actor says she would work with Allen again 'in a second' and that Polanski had 'paid his price' for his behavior.
Charles Bramesco: "Werner Herzog: 'I'm not a pundit. Don't push me into that corner'" (The Guardian)
The acclaimed film-maker talks about his latest project, a documented series of conversations with Mikhail Gorbachev, and his avoidance of certain labels.
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Presenting
Michael Egan
replied:
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
from Bruce
Anecdotes
• In September of 2001 married couple V.R. "Swede" and Martha Jacobsen Roskam were touring Ho Chi Mihn City in Vietnam. Martha visited a flea market and saw a vendor selling a basket of dog tags that had been worn by American soldiers. She told her husband about the dog tags. He was angry. She remembers, "He said those should not be sold on the streets as souvenirs and trivia." The following day Martha bought all 37 of the dog tags for $20. With the help of their son, Peter, who was then an Illinois state senator, they found the last known address that the U.S. military had for each soldier. Peter called the National Archives' National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, Missouri. The director of the National Personnel Records Center said, "Senator, give me one of the names." Quickly, the director said, "It's a match. Give me another one." The dog tags were genuine. The Roskams started trying to find the current addresses of the soldiers. Martha said, "The last address we had for many of these guys was 40 years old, so there were a lot of twists and turns along the way." Whenever possible, Swede and Martha returned the dog tags personally. The first dog tag they returned were to a woman in Phoenix, Arizona, whose nephew, whom she had adopted, had been with a platoon in Vietnam. His platoon stopped to rest, and he sat on a land mine that killed him. Martha said, "Until then, it had been sort of an academic interest for me. My husband is the one who really made it all happen. But then I walked into this very modest home and saw this woman. She had the flag that had been given to her. The first time we saw one another, we embraced and we both wept as mothers. It wasn't hard, but it was very poignant. From then on, it took a different dimension for me." Four of the soldiers whose dog tags they had bought had been killed in combat. Others had died since returning home from Vietnam. One soldier remembered that he had lost his dog tags when his helmet was shot off while he was rappelling in a firefight. Martha said, "One fellow was out in the field a lot and said, 'When all you lost was a dog tag, it wasn't a bad day.'" Swede and Martha returned all 37 dog tags, an effort that took them seven years and ended in September of 2008. Martha said, "We have been so blessed by meeting these wonderful guys who gave so much of themselves at that time and suffered so much. It was something we were supposed to do - and we did it."
• In 1957, actor Jamie Farr (who later played Klinger on TV's M*A*S*H) was drafted into the United States Army. His job for a while was to make training films, but he had to get up early for reveille - the bugles blew at 5:30 a.m. to call the soldiers to line up in a parking lot for roll call. The soldiers were stationed in Queens, New York, and people living in the apartment buildings near the parking lot did not appreciate the bugles. One of those residents painted in big letters on a wall facing the parking lot "YANKEE, GO HOME." By the way, in Fort Knox, Kentucky, Mr. Farr made a training film. A major parked his Jeep on the field where Mr. Farr and others were filming, and he walked over to them to ask what they were doing. They were making a training film demonstrating how a tank could run over anything in its path, and as the major was talking, a tank ran over the major's Jeep. By the way, when Mr. Farr married Joy Ann Richards in 1963, they attended a show by comedian Danny Thomas, who introduced them and said that they had been married for one day. Mr. Farr shouted, "Yes, and they said it wouldn't last!"
• In a speech in 2011, United States President Barack Obama told a story about an American private named Lloyd Corwin, who nearly died during World War II's Battle of the Bulge. He was serving in a regiment in the 80th Division of George Patton's Third Army, and he fell 40 feet into a ravine. Fortunately, a friend - a soldier named Andy Lee - scaled down the ravine and brought him to safer ground. President Obama said, "For the rest of his years, Lloyd credited this soldier, this friend, named Andy Lee, with saving his life, knowing he would never have made it out alone. It was a full four decades after the war, when the two friends reunited in their golden years, that Lloyd learned that the man who saved his life, his friend Andy, was gay. He had no idea. And he didn't much care. Lloyd knew what mattered. He knew what had kept him alive; what made it possible for him to come home and start a family and live the rest of his life. It was his friend."
• During World War II, the British sent bands overseas to entertain the troops. English classical music producer Walter Legg heard the bands auditioning at Drury Lane Theatre for overseas tours, and he marveled at the intonation of the bands, which was flawless although the theatre was unheated and very cold - Mr. Legge recalled "near-Arctic conditions." He congratulated the conductors on the flawless intonations of their bands, and one conductor told him, "You would have no intonation problems if you had our authority to put any man who played out of tune on seven days latrine duty."
• British anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski (1884-1942) once spoke with a cannibal who was aware of the vast number of casualties in World War I. The cannibal asked how the Europeans were able to consume so much human flesh. Told that Europeans did not eat human flesh, the cannibal was horrified and asked how Europeans were able to kill human beings for no reason.
• "Our bombs are smarter than the average high school student. At least they can find Afghanistan." - A. Whitney Brown.
• "Truth is the first casualty of war." - P.J. O'Rourke.
***
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Buying Disney's Sports Networks
Sinclair
Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc, the largest U.S. broadcast station owner, has reached a deal valued at more than $10 billion to buy 21 regional sports networks from Walt Disney Co, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.
The deal, which would include sports channels in Los Angeles and Detroit, is expected to be announced as early as Friday, the newspaper said, citing people familiar with the matter.
Disney acquired the sports networks as part of its $71 billion acquisition of Twenty-First Century Fox Inc's film and television assets.
The company agreed to sell the networks after the U.S. Justice Department said Disney, which owns cable sports network ESPN, must divest the Fox networks that provide sports programming for regional and local markets.
The potential deal for Disney's sports networks would come after Tribune Media Co terminated the sale of 42 TV stations in 33 markets to Sinclair last year.
Sinclair
Judge Overturns $128 Million Arbitration Judgment
'Bones'
A Los Angeles Superior Court judge has overturned $128 million punitive damages awarded to "Bones" stars Emily Deschanel and David Boreanaz and producers Kathy Reichs and Barry Josephson in arbitration, ruling in favor of studio 20th Century Fox Television in the profit participation case.
Judge Richard Rico issued a minute order Thursday denying the decision made by arbitrator Peter Lichtman and striking punitive damages from the award given by Fox to Deschanel, Boreanaz and Reichs. This leaves in place the remaining portion of the $178.7 million award Lichtman granted the "Bones" stars and producers in arbitration back in February. However, lawyers for Deschanel, Boreanaz and Reichs say they plan to appeal the ruling to a higher court.
Back in February, Fox was hit with $179 million judgment - one of the largest rulings of its kind in television history - in a legal battle dating back to 2015, over profit participation on the long-running series "Bones," with Boreanaz, Deschanel, Reichs (the forensic anthropologist whose books inspired the show) and Josephson.
In a 66-page summary of his ruling, Lichtman found that Fox had committed "breach of contract, fraud, and tortious interference with contract" regarding profit participation on the mystery procedural, which ran on the Fox broadcast network from 2005 and 2017 and was also produced by the company's in-house TV studio, 20th Century Fox.
In addition to a finding of actual damages, the arbitrator awarded the now-overturned $128 million in punitive damages, which he wrote "is reasonable and necessary to punish Fox for its reprehensible conduct and deter it from future wrongful conduct." (The $178.7 million total also includes lost payments from European deals, pre-judgment interest, and fees from attorneys and the arbitrator.)
'Bones'
Hair Allegedly Found
Leonardo da Vinci
A pair of Italian scientists said they've discovered a hunk of hair that may have belonged to Leonardo da Vinci, and they want to use DNA testing to confirm whether it came from the famous Renaissance inventor and artist.
But other experts in all things Leonardo and DNA are skeptical. Leonardo's tomb was destroyed during the French Revolution, so there are no known bones to compare the hair against, nor are there living descendants whose genes are suitable for the task.
"The silly season for Leonardo never closes," said Martin Kemp, an emeritus professor of the history of art at the University of Oxford and an expert on Leonardo's life.
Leonardo died on May 2, 1519. Both his home country, Italy, and France, where he died, are hosting events to celebrate the artist and inventor on the 500th anniversary of his death. According to The Guardian, a new lock of hair purported to be from Leonardo will go on display May 2 at the Ideale Leonardo da Vinci museum in Vinci, Italy, the town where he was born, in 1452.
The hair was found in a private collection in the United States, according to Alessandro Vezzosi, the museum's director, and Agnese Sabato, the president of the Leonardo da Vinci Heritage Foundation, who announced plans to DNA test the hair this week. It is tagged, "les cheveux de Leonardo da Vinci." ("Les cheveux" is French for "the hair.")
Leonardo da Vinci
Trapped In Amber
Millipede
A tiny millipede stuck in amber has had 99 million years to contemplate its sticky predicament. The itsy insect didn't live to enjoy its 2019 coming-out party as a scientific curiosity, but the rest of us can marvel at the remarkable specimen.
The millipede is trapped in Cretaceous-era amber found in Myanmar. Researchers determined the millipede is the first fossil found from the order Callipodida, but it was strange enough to require a new suborder. It's now called "Burmanopetalum inexpectatum," with the latter word meaning "unexpected" in Latin.
The team created a 3D model of the 0.3-inch (8.2-millimeter) millipede to more closely study its anatomy.
"With the next-generation micro-computer tomography (micro-CT) and the associated image rendering and processing software, we are now able to reconstruct the whole animal and observe the tiniest morphological traits which are rarely preserved in fossils," said zoologist Pavel Stoev of the National Museum of Natural History in Bulgaria.
The Callipodida order of millipedes still exists today, with over 100 species crawling around the planet. This particular fossil was the only one of its order found among over 500 millipede specimens trapped in the same amber deposit.
Millipede
F*ck Hippocrates
"Religious" Freedom
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on Thursday released a final rule allowing doctors, nurses and other health workers to opt out of procedures such as abortions and sterilizations which violate their personal or religious beliefs.
The rule, proposed more than a year ago, reinforces a set of 25 laws passed by Congress that protect "conscience rights" in healthcare, HHS said. Those laws allow health providers and entities to opt out of providing, participating in, paying for or referring for healthcare services that they have personal or religious objections to, HHS said.
The rule will be effective 60 days from its final publication and enforced by the agency's Office of Civil Rights.
Physicians, medical groups and others have warned the rule would erode protections for vulnerable patients in healthcare, including gay and transgender individuals.
"This administration shows itself to be determined to use religious liberty to harm communities it deems less worthy of equal treatment under the law," Louise Melling, deputy legal director at the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement.
"Religious" Freedom
In The Military
Sexual Assault
Reports of military sexual assaults jumped by 13% last year, but an anonymous survey of service members released Thursday suggests the problem is vastly larger.
The survey results found that more than 20,000 service members said they experienced some type of sexual assault, but only a third of those filed a formal report.
The survey number is about 37% higher than two years ago, when one was last done, fueling frustration within the department and outrage on Capitol Hill.
"I am tired of the statement I get over and over from the chain of command: 'We got this, madam, we got this.' You don't have it!" Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, a New York Democrat, shouted during a Senate Armed Services Committee confirmation hearing Thursday for Army Gen. James McConville. "You're failing us."
McConville has been nominated to be the next chief of staff of the Army, and that service saw a spike of more than 18% in the number of sexual assault reports filed last year. The Marine Corps had the largest jump, at 23%, while the Navy saw a 7% increase and the Air Force was up by about 4%
Sexual Assault
We're Number One!
Anti-Semitic Attacks
Anti-Semitic attacks worldwide rose 13 percent in 2018 from the previous year, with the highest number of incidents reported in major Western democracies including the United States, France, Britain and Germany, an annual study showed on Wednesday.
The report, by Tel Aviv University's Kantor Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry, said far-right and far-left activists and Islamists were behind many attacks but said there was also evidence of anti-Semitism going more mainstream.
It cataloged 387 anti-Semitic attacks worldwide and cited among the causes growing fears in Europe and elsewhere linked to mass immigration, economic hardship and opposition to Israel's policies towards the Palestinians.
Physical attacks, with or without weapons, arson, vandalism and direct threats against Jews, synagogues and other Jewish institutions were included in the overall figure, with over 100 cases occurring in the United States.
Anti-Semitic Attacks
Deep-Earth Methane
Flames of Chimaera
Nine out of 10 scientists agree, mountains should not breathe fire. Despite this, a mountain in southern Turkey has been spewing flames steadily for at least 2,000 years.
There be no dragons or magic to blame for the fire belching forth from the so-called Chimaera seep (also known as the Flames of Chimaera) - but, according to an article published in The New York Times, there may be a just-as-baffling geologic phenomenon fueling the flames.
According to a study in the March 2019 issue of the journal Applied Geochemistry, the Flames of Chimaera are fueled by an underground seep of methane (CH4) - but not the garden-variety sort that's produced when organic matter decays underground, mixes with hydrogen and makes Arctic lakes fart fire.
Rather, the gas fueling Turkey's eternal flame is known as abiotic methane, meaning it is produced spontaneously through chemical reactions between rocks and water deep underground - no decaying plant or animal matter necessary.
In the past decade, scientists working at the Deep Carbon Observatory, an international group studying Earth's deep biosphere and the many millions of undiscovered microbial species living there, have identified hundreds of abiotic methane deposits on land and sea around the world.
Flames of Chimaera
Top 20
Global Concert Tours
The Top 20 Global Concert Tours ranks artists by average box office gross per city and includes the average ticket price for shows Worldwide. The list is based on data provided to the trade publication Pollstar by concert promoters and venue managers. Week of May 1, 2019:
1. Eric Church; $2,795,155; $96.20.
2. Billy Joel; $2,667,702; $129.84.
3. Elton John; $2,285,582; $135.88.
4. Justin Timberlake; $2,146,500; $132.55.
5. Metallica; $2,102,293; $117.72.
6. Fleetwood Mac; $2,037,620; $147.09.
7. Michael Bublé; $1,517,024; $124.47.
8. Post Malone; $1,351,387; $83.44.
9. Cher; $1,345,126; $114.96.
10. Trans-Siberian Orchestra; $1,329,745; $65.24.
11. Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band; $1,324,740; $115.03.
12. KISS; $1,243,595; $105.96.
13. Sebastian Maniscalco; $1,227,139; $101.97.
14. Travis Scott; $1,218,484; $79.19.
15. Mumford & Sons; $1,083,825; $75.66.
16. Blake Shelton; $1,044,392; $89.58.
17. Marc Anthony; $1,040,213; $108.98.
18. Shawn Mendes; $995,521; $69.67.
19. Kenny Chesney; $979,866; $82.54.
20. Florence + The Machine; $955,385; $67.83.
Global Concert Tours
In Memory
Peter Mayhew
Actor Peter Mayhew, who played shaggy, towering Chewbacca in several of the "Star Wars" films, has died, his family said Thursday. He was 74.
The 7-foot-3 Mayhew played the beloved and furry Chewbacca, sidekick to Han Solo and co-pilot of the Millennium Falcon, in the original "Star Wars" trilogy.
He went on to appear as the Wookiee in 2005's "Revenge of the Sith" and shared the part in 2015's "The Force Awakens" with actor Joonas Suotamo, who later took over the role.
Born and raised in England, Mayhew had appeared in just one film and was working as a hospital orderly in London when George Lucas found him and cast him in 1977's "Star Wars."
He is survived by his wife, Angie, and three children. A memorial service will be held June 29.
Peter Mayhew
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