from Bruce
Anecdotes
Preachers
• The early 19th-century Philadelphia lawyer Nicholas Waln was a Quaker. Of course, he lived long before air conditioning. On a stifling hot day, he served as head of a meeting and he chose to end the meeting very early. This shocked his fellow Quakers. When they asked why he had ended the meeting so early, he referred to the words of the prophet Hosea: “I desire mercy and not burnt offerings.”
• As a young reporter, H.L. Mencken covered each Sunday the sermon given by Cardinal Gibbons. Very quickly, he learned that the Cardinal gave essentially the same sermon each Sunday, so one Sunday he didn’t bother to attend the sermon, but merely sent in the usual copy to his newspaper. That happened to be the Sunday that Cardinal Gibbons gave a rousing sermon that ended up on the front page.
• Reverend Andrew Jumper was the pastor of Central Presbyterian Church in Clayton, Missouri, and one year he was hired to go to spring training to give weekly services to professional baseball players. After one sermon, a player told him, “God gave you a great sermon today.” Reverend Jumper replied, “Yes, but I want you to know I typed it.”
• When he was elderly, Church of Christ preacher T.B. Larimore preached the same sermon two nights in a row. When his wife told him, “You preached that sermon last night,” he was unperturbed and replied, “It’s a good one.”
Prejudice
• The mother of James Augustine Healy was Eliza Clark, a black slave in Georgia. Mr. Healy became a priest, and in 1875, he became second bishop of Portland, Maine. Occasionally, his race caused awkward moments. While hearing one young girl’s confession, Mr. Healy was surprised when she stopped and said, “I can’t tell you the rest of my sins.” When Mr. Healy asked why, she replied, “Because it’s something I said against the bishop.” After finally learning that she had said that the bishop was as black as the devil, Mr. Healy told her, “Oh, my child, don’t say the bishop is as black as the devil. You can say he’s as black as coal, or as black as the ace of spades, but don’t say he’s as black as the devil!” During another confession, a young boy told Mr. Healy, “… and I called the bishop a nigger!” Mr. Healy opened the confessional curtain so the boy could see him and said, “Well, son, is there anything wrong with being a nigger? Take a good look at your bishop. Is there anything wrong with being a nigger?”
• Butterfly McQueen, an African-American actress, played Jack Benny’s maid, but eventually she quit, apparently because some people felt she was demeaning herself by playing a maid — although she was making a large salary playing a maid at a time when many people of color were making a small salary being maids. Mr. Benny protested, “Good grief! I’m paying Butterfly $750 a week [big money at the time]. Where else can she get that kind of money? Besides, everybody loves her. I don’t think she’s demeaning herself.” Mr. Benny paused, thought a moment about the other woman on his show, Mary Livingston, his on-radio girlfriend and real-life wife, then he asked, “What does Butterfly want to do — play Mary’s sister?” A moment later, he smiled and answered his own question, “No. She wouldn’t want to do that. Mary’s Jewish.”
• Country comedian Jerry Clower grew up in Mississippi at a time when white people grew up with the attitude that they were better than black people. Fortunately, he was able to unlearn bigotry. When black student James Meredith enrolled in the University of Mississippi, the state government did not encourage citizens to keep control of their hatred. Disturbances broke out, fires were set on campus, and two people died. Mr. Clower, a Christian, got down on his knees in his bedroom and prayed, “Oh, dear God, if my attitude has caused some people to react to this situation like this, I hereby re-dedicate my life. I’m going to change, because I don’t want to encourage an attitude that would cause people to break the law, kill folks, or keep a qualified student from entering the University of Mississippi.”
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Presenting
Michael Egan
U.S.A. replied:
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION
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BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION OF BANDCAMP MUSIC
Music: "Riot on the Cemetery Street"
Album: DON’T BLINK
Artist: The Eyeberries
Artist Location: Moscow, Russia
Info:
Valery Kovalev — guitars, bass
Nikita Radchenkov — drums
Sergey ‘Chief’ Savelyev — organ, thereminvox (tracks 3, 12)
Maxim Makhonin — bassoon (track 7)
Vovka Kozhekin — harp (track 8)
All mixed by Sergey ‘Chief’ Savelyev.
Price: $1 (USD) for track; Name Your Price (Includes FREE) for 12-track album
Genre: Surf. Horror Surf.
Links:
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Current Events
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In The Chaos Household
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‘Civics Remix’
Obamas
If there’s one couple who’s been absolutely booked and busy since their departure from the White House, it’s the Obamas.
Between various media appearances, books and series, this presidential couple is definitely doing their part in redefining what life at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue can look like—and their latest Netflix project is no exception.
Per a press release sent to The Root, We the People is set to teach kids all about American civics as well as empower and “educate a new generation of young Americans about the power of the people.” Spanning across ten animated music videos, the former president and first lady also tapped a handful of creatives and musicians to help bring the sometimes tedious tidbits of U.S. civics from somber to showstopping. Those artists include H.E.R., Janelle Monáe, Cordae, Daveed Diggs, Andra Day, poet Amanda Gorman, KYLE, Brandi Carlisle, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Bebe Rexha and Adam Lambert. The series serves as “an exuberant call to action for everyone to rethink civics as a living, breathing thing and to reframe their understanding of what government and citizenship mean in a modern world.”
Created by Chris Nee, We the People is executive produced by Barack and Michelle Obama and their Higher Ground Banner, as well as Kenya Barris and Nee. Additionally, AFI DOCS will be hosting the world premiere of We the People at a free screening event at this year’s film festival. The screening will take place Thursday, June 24 at 8:00p.m. ET.
Obamas
US Embassy in Vatican
Pride Flag
The United States embassy in the Vatican has decided to fly the Pride flag for the month of June in honour of the LGBT+ community.
“The US Embassy to the Holy See celebrates #PrideMonth with the Pride flag on display during the month of June,” the embassy wrote in a tweet on Tuesday. “The United States respects the dignity and equality of LGBTQI+ people. LGBTQI+ rights are human rights.”
The embassy also shared a statement from US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken on 1 June, the start of Pride Month.
Mr Blinken announced earlier this year that US embassies and consulates would be allowed to fly the Pride flag on the same flagpole as the American flag during “Pride season”.
Pride Flag
Academy of American Poets
23 Poets Laureate
From Charleston, South Carolina, to San Mateo County in California, poets laureate are receiving support from a program managed by the Academy of American Poets.
On Thursday, the academy announced more than $1 million in grants for 23 local and state laureates. They include the Charleston-based Marcus Amaker, Ohio laureate Kari Gunter-Seymour, Illinois laureate Angela Jackson and Aileen Cassinetto of San Mateo County. Others are from Flint, Michigan; Springfield, Massachusetts, and Elgin, Illinois.
“As we begin emerging from COVID-19 restrictions, poetry, which has provided such comfort these past fifteen months, will continue to be a source of insight. We are honored and humbled to fund poets who are devoted to their own craft and also their community. Poets will most certainly help guide us forward,” Jennifer Benka, president and executive director of the Academy of American Poets, said in a statement.
Fellows will receive $50,000 grants, except for Melissa Kwasny and M.L. Smoker, co-poets laureate of Montana, who will divide the money between them. The program, which also includes at least $100,000 for 14 local non-profit organizations, was established in 2019 through a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
23 Poets Laureate
Always Believed
Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra always believed that Marilyn Monroe was murdered, a new book claims.
In a new memoir, titled Sinatra and Me: In The Wee Small Hours, Sinatra’s former manager and close friend, Tony Oppedisano, writes: “Frank believed she was murdered, and he never got over it.”
Oppedisano claims that Monroe, the star of films including Some Like It Hot and The Misfits, often confided in Sinatra, with whom she was close.
Shortly before her death, Monroe was staying at the Cal Neva Lodge near Lake Tahoe – which Sinatra part owned – and the book says that she was actually there with her ex-husband, the baseball star Joe DiMaggio.
Oppedisano writes: “Frank believed if the press conference hadn’t been announced, she would have lived a lot longer.”
Frank Sinatra
Confirmation Bias
Fake News
Confirmation bias goes hand in hand with being human. We, of course, tend to prefer and are more likely to believe things that confirm our worldview rather than things that challenge it. This is particularly important when it comes to the complex web of online information and misinformation.
A new study published in Science Advances reports that both liberals and conservatives more readily believe news stories that favored their side. But conservatives were more likely to believe falsehoods, mostly because there are a lot more viral false stories with a conservative bias.
"Both liberals and conservatives tend to make errors that are influenced by what is good for their side," Kelly Garrett, co-author of the study and professor of communication at The Ohio State University, said in a statement. "But the deck is stacked against conservatives because there is so much more misinformation that supports conservative positions. As a result, conservatives are more often led astray."
The study involved 1,204 American adults Between February and July of 2019. The team collected 20 viral political stories every week, ten of which were true and ten of which were false. The team found that among the high-profile true stories, 65 percent tend to favor issues and candidates preferred by the more left-leaning public against only ten percent favoring the right, with the rest being neutral. When it comes to falsehoods, 45.8 percent of the stories were about right-wing topics and 23.3 benefited the left.
"We saw that viral political falsehoods tended to benefit conservatives, while truths tended to favor liberals. That makes it a lot harder for conservatives to avoid misperceptions," Garrett explained
Fake News
'Absolutely Sickened'
DC Officer
A Washington, DC, Metropolitan Police officer who was attacked at the January 6 Capitol riot said he was "absolutely sickened" by Moscow Mitch McConnell's attempt to block the commission into the event.
Michael Fanone spoke with senators ahead of their vote on the commission last week alongside Gladys Sicknick, the mother of officer Brian Sicknick, the Capitol Police officer who died after the riot. Fanone was attacked during the riot and suffered a heart attack.
CNN previously reported that McConnell had asked other GOP senators to vote against the commission as a "personal favor" to him.
Fanone said: "I was absolutely sickened. You know, here I am escorting the mother of a dead policeman, while she and myself advocate for the formation of a commission to investigate the circumstances which resulted in her son's death.
"And you have a leader on Capitol Hill who's making phone calls asking for personal favors and doling out political capital to push for, you know, a no vote on that commission. It was absolutely disgraceful."
DC Officer
Directional Urination
Obsessed
Former President Donald Trump (R-Lock Him Up) has become increasingly fixated on overturning the 2020 election result, with one advisor saying that trying to tell him that he lost was like "p---ing into the wind," The Washington Post reported on Wednesday.
Despite a failure to prove in US courts that election fraud occurred, Trump has become more and more obsessed with efforts to disprove President Joe Biden's victory and won't listen to dissenting advice, The Post reported.
The Post reported that nearly all the 2020 campaign advisors who'd spoken with the paper said they regarded his fixation on litigating the election as a waste of time. But he keeps returning to the topic, they said.
When advisors leave challenging the 2020 election out of their drafts for his speeches, he goes off script, ad-libbing about the count in various states, The Post reported.
Trump recently met with Pennsylvania state Sen. Doug Mastriano at Trump Tower to talk about an audit in the state, The Post reported.
Obsessed
Humor Deprived
Stanford
A graduating Stanford law student was nearly denied his diploma after complaints about a satirical email invitation he sent imitating the school's Federalist Society.
"The Stanford Federalist Society presents: The Originalist Case for Inciting Insurrection," read the flyer sent to law students by Nicholas Wallace on Jan. 25. The date of the mock event was set as Jan. 6 from 12:45 to 2 p.m.
"Riot information will be emailed the morning of the event," the flyer said.
The Federalist Society is a national organization of conservatives and libertarians, which was formed in part to counter "orthodox liberal ideology" that they say dominates law schools and the legal profession.
While the Federalist Society's complaint was filed on March 27, Wallace told NBC News he didn't learn about it and the corresponding hold on his diploma until May 27th — his last day of law classes at Stanford.
Stanford
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