Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Donald Clarke: So what was the worst blockbuster of the summer? (Irish Times)
Everyone's talking about the summer of direness. What was the worst of the worst? I have an answer.
Why Diet and Exercise Don't Work - 9 Questions for Dan Buettner (Blue Zones)
What I looked at are populations that have lived a long time without the chronic diseases that are killing us or foreshortening our lives. In these populations, people don't exercise in the way we think of exercise. Unfortunately, I think exercise and fitness have us trying to solve the right problem but in the wrong way.
Tom Danehy: Tom weighs in on the electione: National, Local and loco (Tucson Weekly)
It's the middle of August, which means that, here in Tucson, it's the sweaty armpit of the entire year's calendar. I pretty much hate it. I once jokingly wrote that "August is the cruelest month" and all the guys with Master's degrees in English who were working at Bentley's sent me these really well-written hate letters. (Their syntax was like music.)
Cheating Death (Economist)
Science is getting to grips with ways to slow ageing. Rejoice, as long as the side-effects can be managed.
Scott Timberg: How 9/11 chilled musicians: "They were trying to push back against the new status quo. … Some of them got smacked back" (Salon)
Salon speaks to a Duke scholar about the Dixie Chicks and others as the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks nears.
Marissa Martinelli: How Does It Feel to Have the Same Name as a Pokémon During the Pokémon Go Craze? (Slate)
"My coworker came up to me the other day and said, 'Did you know there is a Pokémon with the name Eevee? And it's spelled exactly the same way!' Little did he know that's where it comes from." And though she originally chose the name for its uniqueness, as well as its symmetry, she's thrilled that it's now taking off. "My first thought was 'Yes, finally they will spell my name right at Starbucks.'"
Chris Koentges: The Lonely End of the Rink (Slate)
Gord Downie and the Tragically Hip led Canadians deep into the mysteries of their national identity. Now they're saying goodbye.
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"Doug's Most Shared Facebook Post" Today
wrote:
took the day off.
has returned to semi-retired status.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
from Marc Perkel
Patriot Act
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
SINGLE PAYER NOW!
THE DEFINITION OF 'WHITE TRASH'.
THE 'COMMIE' WING OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY!
THE 'FASCIST' WING OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY.
THE 'KKK' WING OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY!
THE 'CRIMINAL' WING OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY!
SINGLE-PAYER NOW!
THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN ENTERS THE HOSPICE PHASE.
THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN SONG!
BLOW THE BASTARDS OUT OF THE WATER!
LITTLE HANDS.
NYC LA
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Not as hot, but still quite toasty.
First Spouse Duty
Cookies
Bill Clinton is preparing to be "first dude," and that includes the quadrennial tradition of presidential candidate spouses submitting cookie recipes.
The former president of the United States, along with Melania Trump, Donald Trump's wife, submitted cookie recipes for Family Circle magazine's Presidential Cookie Poll, where readers pick between the two cookie recipes.
The poll, which has been held during the fall of every general election year since 1992, is the latest sign in Clinton's historic candidacy, where the traditional responsibilities of the first lady could fall to a man for the first time.
Clinton submitted the family's chocolate chip cookies made with old-fashioned oats, which won during the 1992 and 1996 polls.
Trump, a first time entrant, submitted star cookies made with egg yolks and sour cream.
Cookies
Internet Domain Names
ICANN
The National Telecommunications Information Admistration (NTIA) announced via blog post on Tuesday that it will hand over the internet domain naming system, or DNS, to a non-U.S. entity: the multi-stakeholder nonprofit organization based in Los Angeles called the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).
Essentially, the DNS, which links web addresses to a site's servers via an IP address, will become privatized. The system will remain the same; it's just changing hands. The average Internet user will likely be unaffected.
The NTIA said that the decision will "maintain the security, stability, and resiliency" of the DNS, meet the demands of a global market, and maintain the "openness" of the Internet. They also emphasize the importance of the "multi-stakeholder" model, which combines a variety of voices - from business, from tech, from government, and so on - to collaborate on Internet governance.
Assistant Secretary for Communications and Information and NTIA Administrator Lawrence E. Strickling, who authored the post, explained that the deal had been 18 years in the making, and that the federal government's position in regulating the DNS was always intended to be temporary.
ICANN
T.S. Eliot's Second Wife
Valerie Fletcher
T.S. Eliot's youthful marriage to Vivienne Haigh-Wood is the stuff of legend-married in their 20s, their union was so bleak it was thought to have heavily influenced Eliot's depressing masterpiece, The Waste Land. But his marriage late in life to the much-younger Valerie Fletcher was the complete opposite: calm and sustaining to the aging poet.
Valerie Eliot met her future husband in 1949, two years after Eliot's long-estranged first wife died in a sanatorium. She had come to work as a secretary at his publishing house, Faber and Faber, but her interest was more than professional. She had loved Eliot's work since first hearing a recording of "Journey of the Magi" at age 14, and by the time she met him, she said years later, "I felt I knew him." (A recording of Eliot reading the poem can be heard here.)
When she heard he was seeking a secretary, she eagerly sought out the job.
Still, their love affair was slow to bloom. Eliot was an intensely private man, and Valerie was happy to keep their courtship and eventual engagement a secret from friends and colleagues. When she came to the office one day with a "socking great emerald" engagement ring, as one colleague later put it, she declined to say who had given it to her. The couple finally married in 1957 in a quiet ceremony kept secret from the press and even their friends. "I have so much to tell you on Monday so prepare to do no work!" Valerie wrote to her colleagues afterwards. "A lovely honeymoon apart from TSE catching flu, and cracking a tooth."
Valerie was 30; Thomas was 68. They settled into a quiet union, both content to spend most of their days as homebodies. "We used to stay at home and drink Drambuie and eat cheese and play Scrabble," Valerie would later say in an interview. "He loved to win at cards, and I always made a point of losing by the time we went to bed." They would sometimes venture to theater outings and occasional trips to warmer climes for Thomas's health.
Valerie Fletcher
Mystery of Ice Man's Clothes Solved
Ötzi
About 5,300 years ago, a man now known as Ötzi had a very bad day. Nobody knows exactly how things unfolded but it all ended with an arrow to the shoulder, a blow to the head and a cut-perhaps a defensive wound-to one hand. Either way, Ötzi wound up dead and was soon buried and preserved in a glacier in the Ötzal region of the Alps at the border of Austria and Italy. There he lay until two hikers found him in ice melt in 1991-a much warmer year in a much warmer era than the one in which he lived.
Ötzi-also known simply as the Ice Man-has been an object of both fascination and study since, and well he might be. Everything from his clothes to his quiver to the tattoo markings on his freeze-dried skin to the contents of his stomach (red deer and Alpine ibex appear to have been his final meal) have been preserved and offer a rare look into how Ice Age humans lived.
His leggings were goat, his loincloth was sheep and his coat was made of the skins of both species. "[T]he materials derived from both sheep and goats came from multiple individuals," the researchers wrote. "[T]here were at least four sheep and two goats used in the manufacture."
Ötzi's shoelaces, meantime, came from cattle-similar to the leather laces in modern-day hiking boots-and the quiver was roe deer. The hat was the garment the Ice Man likely had to work hardest for: it came from a brown bear, suggesting Ötzi and his friends weren't afraid to tangle with large carnivores if they had to.
The genomes of the cattle, sheep and goats are consistent with present day animals across most of Europe. The roe deer and brown bear, similarly, have contemporary kin in the Alpine region.
Ötzi
Ending Use Of Privately-Run Federal Prisons
DOJ
The US Department of Justice on Thursday announced it was ending the use of private prisons to detain federal inmates, severing itself from a practice that had become increasingly controversial.
The decision will affect only a small share of the detainee population within the United States, which represents one in four prisoners held around the world.
In an internal memo released by the department, Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates said her agency would begin the gradual process of reversing the privatization of some US prisons, a practice which had proved more problematic but no less costly than the use of government-managed correctional facilities.
Yates also cited a recent report by the department's internal watchdog, the Office of the Inspector General, which found that private prisons were more dangerous than those in public hands.
The prisons are run by three companies: Corrections Corporation of America, GEO Goup and Management and Training Corporation.
DOJ
Gave Cash, Got Settlement
Christie
For years, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has faced questions about whether he has unduly rewarded energy and investment industry donors with state government favors. Now the spotlight has turned to another major donor who appears to have been treated well by Christie's administration: Donald Trump.
According to a report Wednesday in the New York Times, Trump casinos saw their tax bill reduced by roughly $25 million, when the Christie administration agreed to settle a longstanding lawsuit over back taxes for pennies on the dollar. Christie's predecessors had taken Trump's empire to court, alleging it owed nearly $30 million in unpaid taxes and interest - but after Christie came into office, state officials agreed to drop the case in exchange for just $5 million, according to the newspaper.
The 2011 settlement followed Trump pumping $170,000 into the Republican Governors Association - which backed Christie's election campaign - in 2009 and 2010, according to data compiled by PoliticalMoneyLine.com. That was part of the total $620,000 he would end up giving to the group, which was ultimately chaired by Christie in 2014.
The disclosure that Christie's administration settled a lawsuit against a major RGA donor come a little more than a year after the Christie administration similarly settled a landmark state lawsuit against ExxonMobil for pennies on the dollar. That case, which was initiated in 2004 by Democrat and then-Gov. James McGreevey, initially sought $8.9 billion for environmental damage to 1,500 acres of waterfront acres and meadows. Christie's administration settled the suit for just $250 million - a sum that International Business Times calculated could be raised by the company in about five hours, based on the company's 2014 revenues.
Lawsuit settlements are only one public policy area where donors to Christie-linked political groups have benefited from Christie administration decisions.
Christie
Village Votes To Move
Shishmaref
Residents of a tiny island village in Alaska that has been ravaged by erosion blamed on climate change have voted to move to the mainland, but there likely isn't enough money for the impoverished community of just 600 people to follow through on the decision.
The Inupiat Eskimo village of Shishmaref, which sits just north of the Bering Strait, has been identified as one of Alaska's most eroded communities.
Officials held a special election Tuesday asking residents if they should develop a new community at a nearby mainland location or stay put with added environmental protections. Unofficial ballot returns show 89 voted for the move, while 78 opted to stay. A city clerk said the count does not include absentee or special needs ballots.
Either option comes with a daunting price tag. A 2004 Army Corps of Engineers study put the cost of relocating to the mainland at $180 million. Staying in place would cost $110 million.
The village has been exploring relocation since the mid-1970s. It also voted to move in 2002, but money also was an issue then.
Shishmaref
Another Class Act
Mark Meadows
A congressional review panel says there is "substantial reason to believe" that North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows may have broken House rules when he continued to pay an employee accused of sexual harassment for months after he was fired.
The probe into the Republican congressman involves allegations that Meadows approved severance payments to his former chief of staff - whom several female members of Meadows' staff said made them feel uncomfortable - in violation of the rules.
The staffer, Kenny West, was fired in the spring of 2015 but was paid his full salary through mid-August.
The controversy first surfaced in the fall of 2014. After complaints by several women in the office about his behavior, West was not allowed to be present in either Meadows' Washington or home-district offices dating to October, 2014. He appeared to do a limited amount of work while keeping his full-time salary.
The House Ethics Committee's top lawmakers said in a joint statement Wednesday that the panel is reviewing a referral from the independent Office of Congressional Ethics, an outside panel that reviews ethics complaints against House members.
Mark Meadows
Shutting Down Next Week
Gawker.com
Gawker will shutter its flagship website next week, after a court order to pay $140 million to retired wrestling star Hulk Hogan over a sex tape drove the company to bankruptcy.
The announcement on Thursday came two days after Spanish-language broadcast television network Univision made a winning bid of $135 million for Gawker's other assets.
Gawker founder Nick Denton broke the news to staff members on the same day that a bankruptcy court judge in Manhattan approved the Univision deal.
Those working at Gawker.com will be given jobs at the websites being sold to Univision or elsewhere in that company, according to the post.
Gawker Media websites include Deadspin, Lifehacker, Gizmodo, Kotaku, Jalopnik, and Jezebel, which are devoted to interests ranging from games and cars to sports, technology and women's empowerment.
Gawker.com
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