Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Tom Danehy: Arizona finally has a ban on texting while driving-but it's not going into effect soon enough (Tucson Weekly)
We all remember the very first time we saw somebody driving and talking on the phone and thinking to ourselves, "That's just not right." Just think of all the people-mothers and fathers, teachers and engineers, students and retired people-who would still be with us if legislators had recognized the clear and present danger and banned the selfish and stupid practice before it was allowed to spread.
Helaine Olen: Is it better to be born smart or rich? You probably won't like the answer. (Washington Post)
[Nick] Hanauer, who donated more than $1 million to public education reform efforts in the past, isn't against improving public education. But, he says, he has come to believe that education is no magic salve for income inequality. American families are in increasing economic pain not because they lack access to a quality education, but because they aren't getting paid adequately. "Our education system can't compensate for the ways our economic system is failing Americans," he writes.
Paul Waldman: Why Elizabeth Warren is surging (Washington Post)
A successful presidential campaign message tells voters three things: What the problem with America is, what the solution is, and why the candidate is the right person to bring us from the first to the second. In Warren's case, she argues that the system is distorted by the interests of the rich and powerful, and she wants to reorient it both politically and economically in the direction of everyone else. She's the one to do it, she argues, because she understands what's necessary and has already figured out how to go about it (see: the plans).
Elaine Blair: Fighting for Her Life (NY Review of Books)
[Andrea] Dworkin's world is a lonely place for the reader who can bring herself to look, and the loneliness is not trivial: it's why many feminists ultimately dissented from the anti-pornography movement, defended BDSM, and made their own pornography. "Anyone who thinks women are simply indifferent to pornography has never watched a bunch of adolescent girls pass around a trashy novel," wrote Ellen Willis in The Village Voice as she led a break-away "pro-sex" movement of the second wave. "The last thing women need is more sexual shame, guilt, and hypocrisy-this time served up as feminism."
Dana Stevens: Waiting for Thanos (Slate)
Avengers: Endgame is like Samuel Beckett with superheroes.
Holly Swinyard: Pepe the Frog creator wins $15,000 settlement against Infowars (The Guardian)
Victory is latest in a string of legal actions by Matt Furie, who is seeking to halt the co-option of his cartoon by the far right.
John Still: "Laurie Anderson: 'It's a great time to be creating new realities'" (The Guardian)
The avant-garde pioneer's virtual-reality installation To the Moon is coming to Manchester international festival.
Marina Hyde: Mr Stop Shoving It Down My Throat (The Guardian)
From Mr Inferior Product to Mr I Prefer Parks, the tournament has caused a cosmic imbalance that we must redress.
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Presenting
Michael Egan
took the day off.
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Team Coco
CONAN
from Bruce
Anecdotes
• On 10 October 2009 in Western Australia, Justin Bowron and his eight-year-son, Michael, were involved in a truck accident that left them injured and bloody after a tire blew out. Mr. Bowron said, "It blew on the left-hand side of the truck, and the right-hand side swung around. The truck was heading straight into a bush, and I tried to correct the steering wheel. When I did that, it tipped over. The last thing I remember was the driver's side hitting the ground." When he regained consciousness, he saw that he was in a bad way: He was trapped inside the truck because his leg was pinned between the dashboard and the steering wheel. He said, "Diesel was leaking from the truck, and the engine was still running. I was worried it was going to burst into flames. I couldn't find my mobile phone, and the two-way radio had been thrown out of the truck." Michael had been in the sleeper cabin. He tried to use a tire lever to free his father's leg, but he could not. Then he searched for the radio. His father said about the radio, "It was pretty bunged up. It couldn't work because it wasn't connected to the truck anymore. I told Michael he could get it going with the spare battery." The spare battery had also been thrown out of the truck. Michael said, "I found the battery on the side of the road and dragged it over to my dad. He told me to strip the wires from the radio and put them on the red and blue parts of the battery," Michael did that, and he was able to call for help. He said, "I was scared, but I was trying to be brave. My dad had heaps of blood on his face and heaps on his leg. I had heaps on my leg, too, but not as much as my dad."Michael's mother, Christine, arrived first, after calling family members and neighbors to go to the crash site. She said, "I was the first to arrive on the scene. I didn't think it was going to be as bad as it was. At the time I was just thinking, 'How can I help?' It wasn't until later that I thought about how I could have lost them both forever." If Michael had been unable to call for help, his father could have lain there until nightfall. Local volunteer ambulance co-ordinator Peter Geraghty said, "There's basically no traffic on that road. The trouble with farmers, too, is that they often don't come home until late at night so they don't get missed until 10 or 11 o'clock." He said about Michael, "What he did was very impressive. We say he's too old for his age. But a lot of country kids are like that. They know how to fend for themselves because often there is no one around to fend for them." St. John Ambulance spokeswoman Bianca McGougan said about Michael, "He is an outstanding young West Australian whose quick-thinking actions and ability to stay calm in a highly stressful situation helped save his father's life."
• In November 2007, in Fife, Scotland, a nine-year-old boy came to the aid of his mother when a drunken intruder tried to murder her by stabbing her. The boy's father, Mark Thomson, said, "If Nathan hadn't come running, my wife would have been killed."Nathan's mother, Ena Thomson,said that the attacker "burst into the bedroom. I put Nathan out in the hall and the next thing I know is I'm being stabbed. Then Nathan stepped in. It was unbelievable." Nathan said, "He had a big knife and threw her on the floor, then leaned over her, holding her with one hand and stabbing her eight or nine times. My [12-year-old] sister Shannon had come out of her room, and we were shouting at him to stop. When I saw his arm go right up in the air, I knew he was going to kill her and I jumped on his back and pulled him off balance." This gave everybody time to escape. Shannon jumped to safety from her bedroom door, and Nathan and his mother ran down the stairs and out the back door to a neighbor's home. The attacker did break Nathan's jaw and slash his face with a knife, leaving a permanent, honorable scar. Nathan's father said that Nathan remained a "happy-go-lucky boy. He doesn't have a care in the world. I think he's actually enjoying the attention. He saw himself on the TV and started running about the house shouting, 'I'm on the telly.'" Nathan's mother, Ena Thomson,said she was proud of both of her children: "They did really well, I couldn't have done what they did."
• In January 2008 in Wills Point, Texas, a fire broke out in a mobile home. Inside, a 5-year-old boy named Cody McNeese made sure that his 3-year-old brother, Dustin, got safely away from the fire. Kathy McDonald, their aunt, said, "Big brother is always watching after little brother." Cody said, "The heater was on fire, and it went up to the ceiling, and then the ceiling caught on fire. I was trying to wake up my brother and get the door opened, and I got burned." His back, face, and especially his palms were burned, and both boys inhaled smoke, but otherwise they were fine. Brian Saltor, a Hunt County paramedic, said that Cody is a "trouper" and added, "He's very tough. He told me the fire woke him, so he went out of his room hollering for his mother, but she was on the other end of the house. He went back into his room and woke his brother up and made sure he got out. They found their mother in the hallway, and she guided them out. The mom said when she looked back, the children's room was in flames." Ms. McDonald said about the boys, "They are very close. They do their little bickering like brothers do sometimes, but they are tight." Mr. Saltor said that on the way to the hospital, "To maintain his airway, we were singing his ABCs and 'Jesus Loves Me.' I told him he was a hero."
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© Copyright Bruce D. Bruce; All Rights Reserved
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Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
Reader Comment
Current Events
British Writer Pens The Best Description Of Trump
He has no class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wit, no warmth, no wisdom, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no self-awareness, no humility, no honour and no grace - all qualities, funnily enough, with which his predecessor Mr. Obama was generously blessed.
If being a twat was a TV show, Trump would be the boxed set.
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
JD is on vacation.
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Gas was 'only' $3.45/gal at the no-name station.
TV Weatherman Fired
Joe Crain
An Illinois broadcast meteorologist who was taken off television after criticizing an unpopular "Code Red" weather alert system has been fired, his former employer said.
Joe Crain's dismissal was confirmed Thursday by Rob Ford, a spokesman for Sinclair Broadcast Group, which owns Crain's ex-employer, WICS-TV in Springfield. Ford declined further comment.
Crain, a 15-year WICS veteran, was absent from newscasts after an on-air critique June 5 of Sinclair's "Code Red" weather-alert brand , which the station subsequently announced would be replaced.
Crain acknowledged widespread community complaints in this, the nation's 82nd largest TV market, that "Code Red" was alarmist and imprecise. He said it was improperly "all-inclusive" and failed to recognize storms' varying degrees.
"When you hear 'Code Red,' you think, as they say, the feces is about to hit the fan. We understand your concerns," Crain said. "It's not us. This is a corporate initiative, the 'Code Red' alert, and behind the scenes, many of us have tried to dissuade it for the last few months."
Joe Crain
To Testify
Danny Glover
The topic of reparations for slavery is headed to Capitol Hill for its first hearing in more than a decade with writer Ta-Nehisi Coates and actor Danny Glover set to testify before a House panel.
The House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties is scheduled to hold the hearing next Wednesday, its stated purpose "to examine, through open and constructive discourse, the legacy of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, its continuing impact on the community and the path to restorative justice." The date of the hearing, June 19, coincides with Juneteenth, a cultural holiday commemorating the emancipation of enslaved black people in America.
Former Democratic Rep. John Conyers of Michigan, the longtime sponsor of House Resolution 40, first proposed the measure calling for a study of reparations in 1989. Conyers reintroduced the bill every session until his resignation in 2017 .
Texas Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, the resolution's new sponsor, introduced it earlier this year and pushed for next week's hearing. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in February that she supports a reparations study, a topic that hasn't been the subject of a House hearing since 2007.
Reparations had been a fringe issue and occasional punchline until Coates' 2014 essay in The Atlantic, "The Case for Reparations," thrust the topic back into the national discourse. Glover, an activist as well as the star of the "Lethal Weapon" movies and the classics "The Color Purple" and "A Rage in Harlem," has spoken in favor of the issue for years.
Danny Glover
Mexico Releases Recording
Frida Kahlo
Though the iconic image and the work of the late legendary Mexican artist Frida Kahlo are more popular than ever, the sound and the tone of her voice have remained a mystery for years.
Mexico's Fonoteca Nacional, which archives old radio shows and other kinds of recordings, published a radio recording Thursday showing what it believes is the sound of the artist's voice reciting fragments of "Portrait of Diego," a text she wrote in 1949 to describe her husband, acclaimed painter and muralist Diego Rivera.
"He is a big boy, immense, with a friendly face and a sad look," the calm, clear female voice says in a sweet tone, going on to describe his "dark, very intelligent and large eyes," and other physical and intellectual traits.
The Mexican government published the latest finding with caution: It says that while some evidence suggests that the voice in the recording does belong to Kahlo, it has not been able to fully confirm the information.
According to Fonoteca Nacional, the recording seems to be a pilot episode of the radio program called "El Bachiller" from the 1950s, hosted by Alvaro Gálvez y Fuentes.
Frida Kahlo
Orbiter Spots 'Star Trek' Symbol
NASA
It may be time to hail Starfleet and see whether they've set up a base on Mars.
NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured an image of a strange chevron on the Martian surface that looks similar to the symbol for "Star Trek's" Starfleet, the fictional organization of space exploration, diplomacy, research, defense and peacekeeping.
The shapes were found in the southeast Hellas Planitia region of Mars, created by wind, lava and dunes. At some point in Martian history, crescent-shaped dunes were in the area. An eruption sent lava spilling out, moving around the dunes but not covering them. As the lava cooled, the dunes pointed up like islands.
But they were still dunes, so the wind could move them, and the dunes essentially migrated. Their footprints, called "dune casts," were left behind in the lava field.
So, no, it's not an alien habitat or Starfleet base -- unless the United Federation of Planets has some explaining to do.
NASA
AI-Generated
Katie Jones
Katie Jones sure seemed plugged into Washington's political scene. The 30-something redhead boasted a job at a top think tank and a who's-who network of pundits and experts, from the centrist Brookings Institution to the right-wing Heritage Foundation. She was connected to a deputy assistant secretary of state, a senior aide to a senator and the economist Paul Winfree, who is being considered for a seat on the Federal Reserve.
But Katie Jones doesn't exist, The Associated Press has determined. Instead, the persona was part of a vast army of phantom profiles lurking on the professional networking site LinkedIn. And several experts contacted by the AP said Jones' profile picture appeared to have been created by a computer program.
Experts who reviewed the Jones profile's LinkedIn activity say it's typical of espionage efforts on the professional networking site, whose role as a global Rolodex has made it a powerful magnet for spies.
"It smells a lot like some sort of state-run operation," said Jonas Parello-Plesner, who serves as program director at the Denmark-based think tank Alliance of Democracies Foundation and was the target several years ago of an espionage operation that began over LinkedIn .
Unlike Facebook's friends-and-family focus, LinkedIn is oriented toward job seekers and headhunters, people who routinely fire out resumes, build vast webs of contacts and pitch projects to strangers. That connect-them-all approach helps fill the millions of job openings advertised on the site, but it also provides a rich hunting ground for spies. And that has Western intelligence agencies worried.
Katie Jones
Test your ability to tell a real face from a fake one
Generate your own deepfake faces
Stonewall Veteran
Marsha P Johnson
The "P" in Marsha P Johnson stood for "Pay it no mind" - and when people got too nosy about her, that is what she would tell them. Pay it no mind.
Friends say the world heeded that advice, giving Johnson - a transgender activist who played a vital role in the Stonewall riots and the gay rights movement it launched - far less attention than she deserved. Now that's finally changing.
As New York prepares to mark the 50th anniversary of Stonewall alongside its Pride celebration, the city announced plans to build a statue honouring Johnson and her friend Sylvia Rivera, who also championed LGBT+ rights.
It will be the first permanent, public monument honouring transgender women in the world.
"The city Marsha and Sylvia called home will honour their legacy and tell their stories for generations to come," said New York City first lady Chirlane McCray.
Marsha P Johnson
Staying Cool
Zebras
A gangrene-inducing bite in Africa, 40 years of curiosity, and backyard experiments her daughters still complain about have all come together to tell Alison Cobb one thing: Stripes help zebras keep their cool. New research published today in the Journal of Natural History shows stripes may create air flows that give zebras a kind of natural air conditioning system that helps them ward off the blazing sun.
"It's about thermoregulation to avoid the heat and cold," said Cobb, a retired amateur naturalist, who conducted the research with her zoologist husband, Stephen Cobb. Other scientists argue the main reason for stripes is to deter biting insects.
When she was four years old, Cobb, now 85, first wondered about zebra stripes after reading Rudyard Kipling's story "How the Leopard Got His Spots." A nature documentary she watched claimed zebra stripes were a type of camouflage. But camouflage seemed a poor explanation to Cobb in light of her own observations in Africa of lions prowling up and down herds of zebras deciding which one to eat. She had also witnessed zebras spending a great deal of time grazing in the hot midday sun -- more than the antelopes which lived in the same area -- and believed the stripes might be helping them deal with the heat.
Forty years ago she did her first experiment by draping different colored felt coats on water-filled oil drums out in the sun and taking the temperature of the water inside. Without direct access to research animals, she enlisted the help of her three daughters, aged 8, 9 and 10. She made them wear rugby shirts she sewed with zebra stripes and had her "experimental animals" crawl around on their hands and knees in the sun in England.
"They still complain about it. They are now in their early 60s," Cobb said.
Zebras
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