Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Tom Danehy: Tom is increasingly unhappy with the offerings of his cable system (Tucson Weekly)
More than a quarter century ago, Bruce Springsteen sang the sad and prescient song, "Fifty-Seven Channels and Nothing On." It actually sounds somewhat quaint these days. Only 57 channels? What, are you living in your van and being forced to eat broccoli cutlets instead of florets?
Helaine Olen: Now you can pay to play at the National Spelling Bee (Washington Post)
This week marks the annual Scripps National Spelling Bee. By Thursday night, when the event concludes, many of us will have held our breath as we watch children compete to spell words most of us had never heard before that moment. But here's something most viewers will not know: Many of those contestants are on that stage because their parents were able to buy them another chance to compete.
Alexandra Petri: It is increasingly clear that none of you read my report (Washington Post)
Everyone who said things about the report said things like, "I liked the big page that was just black" and "It was very good how the redactions were color-coded" and "I liked that it said 'The Mueller Report' on every page" and nobody talked at all about the actual contents. The sheer lack of discussion of the election interference, which, again, we did find had majorly happened - there is no hope for you.
Paul Waldman: Don't blame 'Washington' for nothing getting done in Washington (Washington Post)
The Republican agenda has gotten quite narrow, and it contains almost nothing that's affirmative in any way. Republicans want to dismantle regulations on the environment and labor rights. They want to take health insurance away from as many people as they can. They want to attack abortion rights and make life more miserable for transgender Americans. And, of course, a giant meteor could be headed to destroy the Earth in 48 hours and they'd try to force through one more tax cut for the wealthy and corporations before we're all vaporized.
Dr. Harry Ofgang & Erik Ofgang: Simple pleasures can go a long way to increasing well-being (Medium)
When he was over 70, the late great comedian Rodney Dangerfield told an audience that he had just come from his doctor, who told him that if he ate right, exercised, and got plenty of fresh air, he'd get old, sick, and die. Too true. Our fate is set, and as far as we know, no one avoids leaving the earth when the time comes. What we want to do and can do is to have fun, live well, enjoy ourselves, and share health and happiness the best we can, for as long as we can.
Noah Berlatsky: "Feminists with a bullet: how the ageing heroine became screen gold" (The Guardian)
As a greying Linda Hamilton dusts off the rocket launcher to take on a new Terminator, we look at how the cowering victims of 70s horror paved the way for today's grizzled gunslingers.
Noah Berlatsky: Tim Burton and the myth of the lone genius (The Guardian)
We like to believe that great artists follow their muse, not the crowd - but far more radical and original work is produced when they listen and collaborate.
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Presenting
Michael Egan
answered:
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
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from Bruce
Anecdotes
• Comedian Fred Allen knew a small-time vaudevillian who acquired enough money to buy a chicken farm and retire. Unfortunately, the vaudevillian missed the excitement of entertaining people and did not enjoy the lack of excitement of raising chickens. Mr. Allen visited the retired vaudevillian one day and listened to him complain. Around them were dozens of white chickens, each of which had a round red spot on its behind. To Mr. Allen, the sight reminded him of dozens of Japanese flags. The retired vaudevillian explained what had happened. He had been giving the chickens a special feed to make them lay larger eggs. The special feed worked - the chickens had been laying eggs so large that they wrecked the chickens' egg-laying equipment. The retired vaudevillian complained, "I had to catch every lousy hen and dab her behind with Mercurochrome [a red medicine]!" Speaking of edible birds, a butcher friend of vaudevillian comedian Jack Inglis gave him a plumb turkey in early October to eat for Thanksgiving. Unfortunately, Mr. Inglis' children enjoyed playing with and chasing the turkey, and in the seven weeks before Thanksgiving, the turkey ran so much that it lost 20 pounds. Mr. Inglis' fellow comedian and friend Fred Allen wrote, "For their Thanksgiving Day dinner that year, the Inglis family had what looked like a tall sparrow."
• During the winter of 2011 in the village of Anglesey, North Wales, passersby heard meowing. The meows were coming from a recycling bin, and they were afraid that a cat was trapped inside, so they called emergency services. Unfortunately, no one could get the locks, which had been tampered with, open, even though the fire service, the RSPCA [Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals] and bin operators all tried. Eventually, they transported the bin to specialist engineering firm K Owen in Llanrhyddlad-an 18-mile trip. Almost 24 hours after the meowing was first heard, engineers cut their way with a steel saw into the bin. Kelvin Owen said, "Once we got into the bin, we heard the meow again. It sounded just like a cat, and we all started to carefully search the bags.Then I found a bag of toys and picked out a toy cat.I said, 'It couldn't be this, could it?' It wasn't making any noise, and I asked if I could cut it open to investigate. As I held it, it went off, 'Meow, meow.' Mystery solved! The lads were in stitches, it was such a laugh." Jasmine Hazelhurst said, "I did feel embarrassed when they pulled out the stuffed cat.But I am also proud at the way everyone rallied around to save the 'cat.'Local people did so much to save the 'cat,' and it shows what community spirit there is.We feared finding a dead cat in the clothes bank, so to find a stuffed toy was a relief."
• This is a story that TV personality Ed McMahon used to tell. Back in the days of Prohibition, a cub reporter on the New York Tribune was assigned to write an article about the arrival of the Barnum & Bailey Circus. He got the assignment because the circus would arrive at 4 a.m., and none of the veteran reporters wanted to be up that early. Like many city reporters during Prohibition, this cub reporter drank alcohol at a speakeasy. Although he had to be present at the arrival of the circus at 4 a.m., the reporter did not want to miss out on any drinking time, so he went to the speakeasy as usual and simply did not go home to sleep. At 4 a.m., he left the speakeasy, hailed a taxi, and told the driver, "Drive up Fifth Avenue until you see an elephant." During Prohibition, when many people ceased to drink moderately and instead drank immoderately as a form of protest, cab drivers sometimes got requests like this. This cab driver figured the passenger simply wanted to go up Fifth Avenue, so he started driving-and he was shocked to see an elephant and the rest of the Barnum & Bailey Circus parading down Fifth Avenue.
• Like other employees, Walt Disney ate at the concession stand at the Disney Studio. One day, he sat at the counter and ordered just a coffee. A stray dog came in with him, without him noticing, and Mary Flanagan, who ran the concession stand, said, "I'll have to call the guard. I don't know where this dog came from." Walt said, "He's probably hungry. Give him a hamburger." Mary gave the stray dog a hamburger, and then Walt gave her a dollar to pay his bill. Mary gave him 40 cents change, and Walt yelled, "What kind of price are you charging for coffee, Mary?" She replied, "The coffee's only a dime, Walt, but the dog was your guest, and that was 50 cents for the hamburger." Walt laughed. As you would expect, Walt was well loved and had many fans. At the New York World's Fair, teenaged girls came up to him and asked him for his autograph. He signed a few autographs, and then he gently took a girl's hands and said, "Look, honey, I'm going to get mobbed. I can't sign anymore." She screamed, "He touched me! He touched me!"
• On 11 November 2011, Deputy Ryan Swartz responded to a car-hitting-deer accident on Hellems Road in Dwight Township, Huron County, Michigan. The deer was a small doe, which was not seriously hurt but which was dazed and standing in the middle of the road. Deputy Swartz picked up the small doe and carried it to the side of the road, where it stayed for about 20 minutes before running off into a field.By the way, a writer who calls himself "forcd ind" and posts on a Chevelle Tech blog remembers seeing a deer that was stuck on a fence. He put on gloves and lifted her hind legs over the fence, being very careful to avoid any kicks. He writes that "after she got over, she turned and looked at me, almost like she was thanking me, then w[a]ndered off."
• "Two kangaroos were talking to each other, and one said, 'Gee, I hope it doesn't rain today. I hate it when the children play inside." - Henny Youngman.
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Concerns Signaled
Georgia
A day after Disney CEO Bob Iger said it would be "difficult" for the media giant to produce TV shows and films in Georgia given its strict new abortion law, WarnerMedia and NBCUniversal have also said they would likely withdraw from the state if the law survives legal challenges.
"We operate and produce work in many states and within several countries at any given time and while that doesn't mean we agree with every position taken by a state or a country and their leaders, we do respect due process," WarnerMedia said in a statement provided to Deadline. "We will watch the situation closely and if the new law holds we will reconsider Georgia as the home to any new productions. As is always the case, we will work closely with our production partners and talent to determine how and where to shoot any given project."
NBCUniversal issued a statement later on Thursday saying the company is keeping a close watch on the events unfolding in Georgia and other states where similar laws have recently passed.
AMC Networks, whose mainstay The Walking Dead is currently shooting its 10th season in Atlanta, joined the chorus. "If this highly restrictive legislation goes into effect, we will reevaluate our activity in Georgia," the company said. "Similar bills - some even more restrictive - have passed in multiple states and have been challenged. This is likely to be a long and complicated fight and we are watching it all very closely."
Georgia
'Jeopardy' Champ
James Holzhauer
"Jeopardy!" champion James Holzhauer continues to give back to the community.
Holzhauer surprised the staff at Communities in Schools of Southern Nevada on Thursday by coming to the office with a $10,000 donation, according to a spokesperson.
He told CEO Tami Hance that he was impressed by the organization's work with Nevada students.
Communities in Schools of Nevada works to keep students in school and on the path toward graduation.
Since his run began airing, Holzhauer and his wife, Melissa, have made donations to several organizations, including the Las Vegas Natural History Museum and Project 150.
James Holzhauer
Suing Ion Maiden
Iron Maiden
Ageing British metal band Iron Maiden (or at least the band's holding company) are suing video game publisher 3D Realms over retro shooter Ion Maiden, claiming the game's logo and marketing is "an effort to confuse consumers into believing Defendant's products and services are somehow affiliated with or approved by Iron Maiden".
The lawsuit, filed in the Central District of California court on May 28, includes claims such as the "Defendant's misappropriation and use of a virtually identical imitation of the Iron Maiden trademark creates a likelihood of confusion among consumers. Customers who view Defendant's video game and merchandise are likely to believe that Iron Maiden is somehow affiliated with Defendant."
The game also stands accused of ripping off Iron Maiden's trademark "steelcut" logo.
The lawsuit goes on to claim "there have been numerous instances of actual confusion with Iron Maiden fans believing that Defendants' Ion Maiden products are related to Iron Maiden", including these absolutely wonderful examples of online naivety, with fans of the band apparently:
The band's holding company, Iron Maiden Holdings, is looking for $2 million in damages, and also either wants the game's website (ionmaiden.com) taken down or handed over.
Iron Maiden
Feud Over Salad Dressing
Tom Petty
Tom Petty's widow has issued legal threats against his eldest daughter, Adria, accusing her of planning to create a Paul Newman-style range of salad dressings using her father's image.
The new allegations are part of a broader feud between Dana and Petty's daughters by his first marriage, Adria and Annakim, which is ultimately about control of the Petty estate and intellectual property.
Dana is the sole trustee of her late husband's trust, however, Variety reports, the trust directs her to establish an entity to control Petty's catalog, with, crucially, "equal participation" from his daughters.
Adria and Annakim have interpreted "equal participation" to mean they should get control of the entity by a two-thirds majority vote.
Dana Petty, who was married to Tom for the last ten years of his life, has now accused Adria of sending her abusive text messages as a bitter struggle for control of the late rocker's estate escalates.
Tom Petty
20 Seconds In
Earthquake
Seismologists are claiming to have found one of the holy grails of disaster prevention, a signal that can be used as an early warning system for the most destructive earthquakes. Unfortunately, the warning time is less than a minute before peak impact, but the team who found it still think this may be enough to save some lives.
Professor Diego Melgar studied US databases of earthquake events. By looking at the rate of acceleration, rather than of movement, over the first 20 seconds, he was able to distinguish events that would become large enough to do serious damage from those that never subsequently grew so large. "On average, earthquakes with a larger final magnitude grow faster early on," Melgar writes in Science Advances.
Melgar then sought to confirm his conclusions using European and Chinese records. "To me, the surprise was that the pattern was so consistent," he said in a statement. "These databases are made [in] different ways, so it was really nice to see similar patterns across them."
Melgar analyzed more than 3,000 earthquakes of magnitude 6 or larger. Among these were 12 major events between 2003-2016, all of which could be identified as on the way to something big by around the 15-second mark. The time from there to the peak varied between 10 seconds and a minute.
Melgar has already provided evidence that GPS data from the sea floor could add a life-saving 20 minutes to tsunami warning times. It's easy to see how something like that could prevent most of the direct loss of life from such events. It will be more challenging to make similar use of his latest discovery, perhaps through an automatic shutdown of fire hazards.
Earthquake
NOAA Ship Makes Unexpected Discovery
Gulf of Mexico
The NOAA ship Okeanos Explorer discovered a shipwreck in the Gulf of Mexico while testing a new remotely operated vehicle.
Researchers believe the 124 foot long ship was built in the mid-1800s.
The number 2109 is visible on the ship's rudder.
The structure above the water line is missing, and some timbers are charred, leading experts to believe the ship caught fire before sinking.
The hull is largely intact with copper sheathing covering the bottom of the hull.
Gulf of Mexico
Salty Diamonds
Earth
It's been said that diamonds are forever - probably because "diamonds are billion-year-old mutant rocks exposed to many lifetimes of crushing pressures and scorching temperatures in Earth's deep mantle" doesn't have the same snappy ring to it.
Either way, it takes a long, long time for a chunk of carbon to crystallize into a sparkling diamond - so long, in fact, that scientists aren't positive how they're made. One popular theory maintains that many diamonds form when slabs of seabed (part of an oceanic plate) grind underneath continental plates at so-called tectonic subduction zones. During the process, the oceanic plate and all the minerals at the bottom of the sea plunge hundreds of miles into Earth's mantle, where they slowly crystallize under high temperatures and pressures tens of thousands of times greater than those on the surface. Eventually, these crystals mix in with volcanic magma called kimberlite and burst onto the planet's surface as diamonds.
Support for this theory can be found in the oceanic minerals that give blue stones - like the infamous (and possibly cursed) Hope diamond - their signature hue. However, these diamonds are among the deepest, rarest and most expensive on Earth, making them hard to study. Now, research published today (May 29) in the journal Science Advances provides fresh evidence for diamonds' oceanic origins. For the study, the researchers looked at the salty sediment deposits inside a much more common class of stone, known as fibrous diamonds.
Unlike most diamonds that end up in wedding paraphernalia, fibrous diamonds are clouded with little deposits of salt, potassium and other substances. They're less valuable to jewelers, but arguably more valuable to scientists looking to uncover their underground origins.
"There was a theory that the salts trapped inside diamonds came from marine seawater, but it couldn't be tested," Michael Förster, a professor at Macquarie University in Australia and lead author of the new study, said in a statement.
Earth
Impervious to Many Types of Pain
Mole-Rats
New research shows that several species of African mole-rats have evolved an uncanny ability to ward off certain types of pain, including discomfort wrought by acid, chili peppers, and hot mustard. These insights could eventually lead to advanced pain-relieving therapies in humans.
They're not the prettiest things on the planet, but mole-rats are unquestionably cool.
The iconic naked mole-rat, with its ability to resist cancer and oxygen deprivation and seemingly death itself, tends to get much of the research attention, but there are several other species of mole-rats with plenty to offer. New research published today in Science shows that multiple species African mole-rats have acquired an insensitivity to certain kinds of pain. Genetic endowments allow these subterranean rodents to thrive in otherwise inhabitable abodes, such as burrows crawling with venomous ants.
The new study, led by Karlien Debus and Ole Eigenbrod from the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in Germany, is a follow-up to work done on naked-mole rats back in 2008. The previous study, led by Thomas Park from the University of Illinois at Chicago, showed that naked-mole rats were surprisingly impervious to pain induced by acid and capsaicin, the latter of which gives chili peppers their heat.
Mole-Rats
20,000-Year-Old Sample
Seawater
US researchers have obtained a seawater sample from 20,000 years ago, the age of the Last Glacial Maximum. This water sample was trapped in sediments during a time when mammoths still roamed the Earth and humans just started making pottery.
As reported in Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, researchers extracted the water from sedimentary rock collected from the bottom of the ocean near the Maldives. They put the sample into a hydraulic press and squeezed the rock under extremely high pressure, releasing water once trapped in its pores. They then used the presence of certain types of elements to date it, confirming predictions of what ancient seawater was like 20,000 years ago.
"Previously, all we had to go on to reconstruct seawater from the last Ice Age were indirect clues, like fossil corals and chemical signatures from sediments on the seafloor," Clara Blättler, an assistant professor of geophysical sciences at the University of Chicago, said in a statement. "But from all indications, it looks pretty clear we now have an actual piece of this 20,000-year-old ocean."
The samples were extracted using the JOIDES Resolution ship, which is capable of collecting rock cores almost 2 kilometers (over a mile) long from up to 5 kilometers (3 miles) underneath the ocean floor. The team was studying sediments to understand how they formed and are shaped by the Asian monsoon cycle. However, the water they extracted revealed a different story: the seawater from the rock was saltier than expected.
For the team to uncover such a sample, the ancient water must have penetrated the porous rock and was then covered by sediments, allowing the sample to sit undisturbed until the researchers drilled and pressed for it. This is the first discovery of such an ancient water sample.
Seawater
In Memory
Leon Redbone
Singer-songwriter Leon Redbone, who specialized in old-school vaudeville and Tin Pan Alley-style music, died Thursday, his family confirmed. He was 69. Though, in characteristically whimsical fashion, the official statement announcing his death gave his age as 127.
Although Redbone's pop-defying predilection for seemingly antiquated musical styles of the '20s and '30s made him the unlikeliest of stars, he became one anyway, appearing several times as the musical guest on "Saturday Night Live" - including two spots in the inaugural 1975-76 season alone - and landing frequent appearances with Johnny Carson on "The Tonight Show" into the 1980s. Later popular successes had him singing the themes for TV's "Mr. Beledevere" and "Harry and the Hendersons," along with contributing a duet of "Baby, It's Cold Outside" with Zooey Deschanel to the soundtrack of "Elf," for which he also voiced the animated character of Leon the Snowman.
Redbone had officially retired in 2015, with a representative then citing unspecified health concerns that had "been a matter of concern for some time" as the reason for his being unable to continue performing or recording.
A post on Redbone's website confirming his death contained enough deadpan humor and obvious fiction that it was almost certainly prepared in advance by the singer himself. "It is with heavy hearts we announce that early this morning, May 30th, 2019, Leon Redbone crossed the delta for that beautiful shore at the age of 127," it read. "He departed our world with his guitar, his trusty companion Rover, and a simple tip of his hat. He's interested to see what Blind Blake, Emmett, and Jelly Roll have been up to in his absence, and has plans for a rousing sing along number with Sári Barabás. An eternity of pouring through texts in the Library of Ashurbanipal will be a welcome repose, perhaps followed by a shot or two of whiskey with Lee Morse, and some long overdue discussions with his favorite Uncle, Suppiluliuma I of the Hittites. To his fans, friends, and loving family who have already been missing him so in this realm he says, 'Oh behave yourselves. Thank you…. and good evening everybody.'"
Ironically, one of Redbone's most popular concert pieces was "Please Don't Talk About Me When I'm Gone" - a number that incorporated whistling solos that further ensured Redbone would be talked about in his absence. That song title, which dates back to 1930, was adapted as the name of a documentary about Redbone that premiered at festivals in 2018 but has not yet been widely released.
Redbone's improbable career saw the release of 16 full-length albums beginning with "On the Track," his 1975 debut on Warner Bros. He went on to put out albums on his own August imprint through Blue Thumb, Private Music and Rounder, with his final new release, 2014's "Flying By," issued through his August Records imprint (distributed by Rounder), as were all of his recordings dating back to the mid-1980s.
His persona oddly lent itself to numerous commercial syncs, from Budweiser to Purina's Burger 'n' Bones dog food.
That Redbone showed up in animated form so often, from the dog food spot to his vocal work as the snowman in "Elf," may have been prefigured by the artwork for his Warner Bros. debut. That album cover featured not a photo of Redbone, but rather a Chuck Jones drawing of the character Michigan J. Frog. That was a possible gag on Redbone's singing voice but mostly on how the star of the Warner Bros. cartoon "One Froggy Evening" was brought back from an earlier time in formal, anachronistic garb to sing music from another era - in other words, a character that could loosely have been the amusingly anthropomorphic model for Redbone's own.
At a 1990 concert at L.A.'s Roxy, the power went out but, naturally, Redbone continued to perform acoustically by candlelight. At that show, Redbone summed up how the appeal of the earliest pop music seemed obvious to him, when he encouraged the audience to sing along with "Polly Wolly Doodle": "This song's more than 100 years old," he said, "so you've had plenty of time to learn it."
Leon Redbone
LEON REDBONE - SHINE ON HARVEST MOON
Leon Redbone- Ain't Misbehaving (I'm Savin' My Love For You)
Leon Redbone - I Aint Got Nobody (extended intro)
Leon Redbone - Diddy Wa Diddie 1977
LEON REDBONE - UP A LAZY RIVER & MR. JELLY ROLL BAKER
Leon Redbone Tribute Channel
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