from Bruce
Anecdotes
Zen
• Westerners can go to a Zen temple and meditate if they wish, but they must follow the rules, one of which is that they arrive early for meditation. While in Japan, Robert E. Kennedy was meditating at a Zen center when an American Catholic Sister arrived late for meditation. The senior monk stared at her in astonishment, then he picked up his stick — used to hit the meditators when their attention drifts — advanced toward the Sister, raised it above his head, then hit the floor beside the Sister with a loud whack. The Sister began backing away, and again the senior monk raised the stick above his head, then he hit the floor beside the Sister with a loud whack. Now the Sister began running toward the doorway, and the senior monk ran after her and hit the door frame with a loud whack. The purpose of this was not to hurt the Sister, but simply to let her know that one is never tardy for a meditation session. After that demonstration, no one was ever tardy again.
• In the year 1582, some soldiers sought refuge at a Zen temple. When their enemy arrived at the temple and demanded that the soldiers be given to them, the abbot, Kwaisen, refused. Therefore, the enemy locked Kwaisen and the monks under him in a tower, then they set the tower on fire. Inside the tower, Kwaisen gave his final sermon, saying, “For peaceful meditation, we need not go to the mountains and streams. When thoughts are quiet, fire itself is cool and refreshing.” Kwaisen and the other monks died without making a sound.
• A student asked Zen master Qianfeng where the road that leads directly to Nirvana is located. Qianfeng used his staff to draw a line in the dirt in front of him, then he said, “The road begins right here.”
• When any church will inscribe over its altar as its sole qualification for membership, the Saviour’s condensedstatement of the substance of both law and Gospel, ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul, and thy neighbor as thyself,’ that church will I join with all my heart and all my soul.” — Abraham Lincoln.
Age
• Author Michael Thomas Ford once spoke before a class of children. One child asked him, “How old are you?” When he gave the answer — 30 — he shocked the children, one of whom marveled, “You’re older than my mom,” and another of whom said, “That’s old.” Afterward, the children’s teacher explained that whenever the children asked her how old she was, “I just tell them I knew God when he was a boy. That shuts them up — except for the ones who want to know if He was a good kickball player.”
• Pope John XXIII once traveled through a Roman tenement where some blankets covered billboards showing a very shapely Italian actress. The Pope noticed this and told the crowd, “It is good that you do this, but you should realize that I am an old man, and if one of my age is thought to be scandalized by pictures like these, what of yourselves and your children?”
• In Haifa, a city in Israel, the walls of the subway cars have stenciled on them these words from Leviticus: “You should rise up before the aged.” In other words: When the subway car is crowded, get up and give your seat to an older person.
Animals
• Wesleyan pastor William Woughter was serving at a church called Buena Vista, located in a rural area near Bath, New York, when he retired. This church had the custom of giving the pastor the fruits of the earth on Harvest Day. One Sunday during harvest, the pastor would be kept out of the church until the farmers had brought in the good things of the earth as presents to the pastor. One Harvest Day, a man named Dean Stewart brought in a live turkey, which proceeded to gobble as Pastor William began his sermon. Pastor William looked at the turkey and said, “If you don’t stop that noise, I will make you preach the rest of the sermon.” The turkey stayed quiet until church was over.
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© Copyright Bruce D. Bruce; All Rights Reserved
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Presenting
Michael Egan
U.S.A. replied:
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION
BANDCAMP MUSIC
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION OF BANDCAMP MUSIC
Music: "Northside"
Album: SOUL BIRD
Artist: Thea Ennen With Dave Ja Vue
Artist Location: Wisconsin
Info:
Music and Lyrics - Thea Ennen
Piano/vocal - Thea Ennen
Guitar - Dave Ja Vue
Price: $1 (USD) for track; $7 (USD) for 9-track album
Genre: Folk. Singer-Songwriter.
Links:
SOUL BIRD
Thea Ennen on Bandcamp
Thea Ennen on YouTube
Other Links:
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David Bruce's Blog #1
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David Bruce has over 140 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Stephen Suggests
SCOTUS 1967
Supreme Court this week in 1967
Supreme Court, in the well-named Loving v. Virginia, ended bans on interracial marriage this week 1967 (Mildred and Richard Loving)
Stephen F
Thanks, Stephen!
New Venture
Michael Egan
Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
Reader Comment
Current Events
Linda >^..^<
We are all only temporarily able bodied.
Thanks, Linda!
that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Beginning to think I'm the only one who purchased nothing at Amazon last year.
DOJ Seized Data
House Dems
The Justice Department under former President Donald Trump (R-Lock Him Up) seized data from the accounts of at least two members of the House Intelligence Committee in 2018 as part of an aggressive crackdown on leaks related to the Russia investigation and other national security matters, according to a committee official and two people familiar with the investigation.
Prosecutors from Trump’s Justice Department subpoenaed Apple for the data, according to the people, who were granted anonymity to discuss the secret seizures. The revelations were first reported by The New York Times.
The records of at least twelve people connected to the intelligence panel were eventually seized, including Chairman Adam Schiff, who was then the top Democrat on the committee. California Rep. Eric Swalwell was the second member, according to spokeswoman Natalie Edelstein.
The records of aides and family members were also shared, including one who was a minor, according to the committee official. Apple informed the committee last month that their records had been shared, but did not give extensive detail. The committee is aware, though, that metadata from the accounts was turned over, the official said.
The news follows revelations that the Justice Department had secretly seized phone records belonging to reporters at The New York Times, The Washington Post and CNN as part of criminal leak investigations. Following an outcry from press freedom organizations, the Justice Department announced last week that it would cease the practice of going after journalists’ sourcing information.
House Dems
Stephen Colbert Joins Board Of Directors
The Second City
Stephen Colbert is returning to his Chicago comedy roots, joining the new board of directors for The Second City.
The Late Show host also will co-chair The Second City’s Artistic Advisory Board to advocate for artists.
Colbert first came to Chicago in 1984 and studied at Northwestern University. He learned the art of improv at iO Chicago (known at the time as Improv Olympic) and later Second City.
Colbert joins five others on the newly appointed board for The Second City.
The Second City
Returns To CNN
Toobin
CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin returned to the network Thursday for the first time in more than seven months after he was caught masturbating on a Zoom call with former colleagues at The New Yorker.
Toobin, in an interview with CNN’s Alisyn Camerota, said that he was grateful to CNN for another chance and that he was “trying to become the kind of person that people can trust again.”
Camerota asked him bluntly, “what the hell were you thinking?”
“I thought this punishment was excessive,” he said. “But that’s why they don’t ask the criminal to be the judge in his own case.”
He said he’s been in therapy, apologized personally to those he let down and has been doing community service at a food bank. He apologized to CNN viewers.
Toobin
‘Child Support Pennies’
Virginia
Avery Sanford said she didn’t know what to think when she saw a landscaping trailer pull up outside her Virginia home last month.
Moments later, more than 80,000 pennies were spilling into the street and on her front lawn.
“My mom came out and was like, ‘What are you dumping in my yard?’ “ Sanford, 18, told WTVR of the surprise visit by her dad, who she said she hasn’t spoken to in years. “She didn’t know who it was until he shouted, ‘It’s your final child support payment.’ “
Despite the “embarrassing” display, the teen and her mother got the coins cleaned up and decided every penny would go toward a good cause. Her dad’s final payment, Sanford said, will now benefit women and children who survived domestic abuse.
Safe Harbor Shelter, located in Richmond, offers support to those who’ve experienced domestic violence, sexual abuse, human trafficking and other traumas, according to the shelter’s website. Officials with the nonprofit confirmed Sanford’s gift to The Washington Post.
Virginia
Two More Members Resign
FDA Advisory Panel
Two members of a panel of outside advisors to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration have resigned in protest at the agency's decision to approve Biogen Inc's Aduhelm for treatment of Alzheimer's disease despite the committee’s recommendation against doing so.
Mayo Clinic neurologist Dr. David Knopman, a panel member who had been recused from the advisors’ November meeting to review the drug because he was an investigator in clinical trials of Biogen’s drug, said he resigned on Wednesday.
The 11-member committee voted nearly unanimously in November that Biogen's drug should not be approved, citing inconclusive evidence that the drug was effective. Due to his recusal, Knopman did not participate in the vote.
The FDA on Monday gave the drug "accelerated approval,” based on evidence that it can reduce a likely contributor to Alzheimer’s, rather than proof of a clear benefit against the disease.
On Tuesday, a member of the advisory group who voted against the approval, Washington University neurologist Dr. Joel Perlmutter, resigned from the committee, citing the FDA's approval of Aduhelm without further discussion with its advisors.
FDA Advisory Panel
Duped Followers
Fake Family Accounts
A man is facing criminal charges for allegedly impersonating members of Donald Trump’s family in an online scheme that led hundreds of people to donate thousands of dollars to what prosecutors have called a phoney political organisation.
Joshua Hall, a 22-year-old man from Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, is accused of raising thousands of dollars via accounts in the name of the president’s brother, Robert, and his youngest son, Barron.
The accounts posted messages calling for donations via a crowdfunding website, and directed users to follow Mr Hall’s own bona fide account, from which he solicited donations.
According to a court filing in the Southern District of New York, the FBI found that Mr Hall “used those accounts to amass more than 100,000 followers on social media and obtain media coverage, a public platform he then exploited to confer on himself and the Fictitious Political Organisation a false imprimatur of close ties with the president’s family and to encourage victims to make monetary contributions to the Fictitious Political Organisation”.
As the FBI tells it, Mr Hall created his account in the name of the president’s brother in July 2020, and posted from it until Robert Trump died a month later. It was then that he allegedly created the account in the name of Barron Trump – then 14 years old – which posted messages calling Mr Hall a “friend and partner”.
Fake Family Accounts
Meteorite Impacts
Earth
The rain of meteorites from space onto our planet over the last 500 million years may not have fallen in quite the way we thought.
After analyzing 8,484 kilograms (18,704 pounds) of sedimentary rock from ancient seabeds, scientists have found that major collisions in the asteroid belt have not made any significant contribution to the number of meteorite impacts on Earth, as had been theorized.
It's a discovery scientists say could help protect Earth from asteroid impacts in the future.
Tracking Earth's meteorite history isn't exactly easy. Impact events involving large bodies that leave a significant crater are rare; many space rocks break apart on atmospheric entry, leaving only debris to fall to Earth.
This debris is what Schmitz and his colleagues have been chasing: tiny fragments of micrometeorite, preserved in the sedimentary layers of Earth's crust.
Earth
Golden Age
Bird Migration
A plump robin wearing a tiny metal backpack with an antenna hops around a suburban yard in Takoma Park, then plucks a cicada from the ground for a snack.
Ecologist Emily Williams watches through binoculars from behind a bush. On this clear spring day, she’s snooping on his dating life. “Now I’m watching to see whether he’s found a mate,” she said, scrutinizing his interactions with another robin in a nearby tree.
Once the bird moves on at season's end, she’ll rely on the backpack to beam frequent location data to the Argos satellite, then back to Williams' laptop, to track it.
The goal is to unravel why some American robins migrate long distances, but others do not. With more precise information about nesting success and conditions in breeding and wintering grounds, “we should be able to tell the relative roles of genetics versus the environment in shaping why birds migrate,” said Williams, who is based at Georgetown University.
Putting beacons on birds is not novel. But a new antenna on the International Space Station and receptors on the Argos satellite, plus the shrinking size of tracking chips and batteries, are allowing scientists to remotely monitor songbird movements in much greater detail than ever before.
Bird Migration
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