Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Helaine Olen: No, the New Yorker didn't violate Steve Bannon's right to free speech (Washington Post)
… it has nothing to do with free speech. No one is obliged to give a platform to anyone. Bannon doesn't lack attention for his ideas, nor is it hard for the rest of us to stumble into them. Heck, he's all but omnipresent.
Tom Danehy: Donald Trump is surrounded by men of conviction-criminal conviction (Tucson Weekly)
When news hit the other day that, almost simultaneously, Paul Manafort had been convicted of eight felonies and that Michael Cohen had pleaded guilty to eight felonies, I immediately switched over to Fox News. It's so much fun watching them go into mega-contortionist mode. That night, he spoke at a rally in West Virginia. He started off with the whopper that West Virginia's growth in gross domestic product since he had taken office was among the best in the country. It's actually in the bottom third.
Greg Sargent: One of the ugliest Woodward revelations is about Trump and race (Washington Post)
… Trump has deliberately provoked racial discord out of a combination of genuine racist conviction and a belief that it helps him politically. Trump pardoned Joe Arpaio, despite his racism and civil rights abuses directed at Latinos, after growing convinced that it was " a way of pleasing his political base." After Trump's horrific family separations policy attracted universal condemnation, he reportedly claimed that "my people love it." And Trump revived his attacks on football players for the act of protesting racism in the explicit belief that doing so " revs up his political base."
Paul Waldman: The Democratic Party is catching up to its own voters (Washington Post)
If you're a Republican, you probably hope that this and other primaries represent Democrats nominating a bunch of extremists who will push their party so far to the left that independent voters will never support them, and the result will be more Republicans getting elected. But that's not what's happening. There is something revolutionary afoot in the Democratic Party, but it's more of a careful and long-overdue revolution than a violent upheaval.
Paul Waldman: Republicans keep trying to strip protections for preexisting conditions (Washington Post)
In a federal courtroom in Texas on Wednesday, oral arguments begin in an extraordinary lawsuit that seeks to remove the Affordable Care Act's protections for the tens of millions of Americans with preexisting conditions, allowing insurance companies to once again deny them coverage or jack up their premiums to unaffordable rates.
Jonathan Chait: Senior White House Official Confesses Anti-Trump Cabal in Newspaper Trump Reads (NY Mag)
Of course, the author had good reason not to admit his identity. If he did, he'd be fired, and wouldn't be able to stop the deranged president from hurting the country! The problem isn't that he's gutless, it's that he's too gutty. By recklessly calling Trump's attention to the plot against him, the author is undermining its effectiveness.
Anonymous: I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration (NY Times)
I work for the president but like-minded colleagues and I have vowed to thwart parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations.
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Presenting
Michael Egan
"Doug's Most Shared Facebook Post" Today
responded:
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
David E Suggests
Roofs
David
Thanks, Dave!
from Bruce
WORK Anecdotes
• F. Scott Fitzgerald had the soul of a poet. While writer Corey Ford was living in Hollywood he stayed in an apartment which had a view he disliked and avoided. The view was of a hillside that was being bulldozed for building sites. The hillside had been bulldozed into terraces, on which were trailing vines. One night, Mr. Fitzgerald visited Mr. Ford. Mr. Fitzgerald wandered to the balcony, gazed at the moonlit scene, and said, "The hanging gardens of Babylon." After that, Mr. Ford frequently enjoyed the view from his terrace.
• British artist Sir Joshua Reynolds looked through some drawings at a second-hand picture dealer's, then asked how much one of the drawings cost. Astonished to hear that the price was 20 guineas, he asked, "Twenty pence, I suppose you mean?" The dealer replied, "No, sir. It is true that this morning I would have taken 20 pence for it, but if you think it is worth looking at, all the world will think it worth buying." Sir Joshua paid the 20 guineas for the drawing.
• Salvador Dali, the great Surrealist, once went to Hollywood. The idea was that Mr. Dali would paint a nightmare, and then a crew of carpenters would create a set based on his painting. Everyone thought this was a wonderful idea, but there was a snag. The carpenters studied the painting for a long time, but were forced to give up the project because, they said, "We can't figure out where to start."
• William Gladstone once saw a portrait of a nobleman that he liked immensely but which he could not afford to buy. A few weeks after seeing the portrait, he was invited to a house to dine, where he saw the portrait hanging on the wall. Noticing Gladstone's interest in the portrait, his host said, "One of my ancestors." Gladstone replied, "If the portrait had cost less, he would have become one of my ancestors."
• Zero Mostel hated Fascism and for many years couldn't make himself visit Franco's Spain despite the many paintings he wished to see in the Prado. He finally decided to go because he realized that Franco could see the paintings and he couldn't. A painting Mr. Mostel especially wished to see was Hieronymus Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights, and according to his wife, Kate, he spent 100 hours looking at this one painting.
• At Chasen's Restaurant, James Thurber once spent several hours drawing a mural depicting the War Between Men and Women. The owner of the restaurant, Dave Chasen, was delighted with the mural, but the next day the restaurant's cleaning lady walked out of the men's restroom and told him, "Some drunk scribbled all over the walls in there, but I finally got it washed off."
• The dreary apartment in The Honeymooners was based on the apartment in which Jackie Gleason grew up with his poverty-stricken mother. Once, a stagehand began to hang a picture near the door to the bedroom, but Jackie objected, "We didn't have a picture in the flat. Take it down."
• A man hired American painter James Abbott McNeill Whistler to paint his portrait, but when the portrait was finished, the man disliked it and called it "a bad work of art." Mr. Whistler replied that he had done the best he could, but unfortunately the man was "a bad work of nature."
• Harold Ross liked James Thurber and defended him. Once, an artist stalked into Mr. Ross' office and demanded, "Why do you reject my works and publish a fourth-rate artist like Thurber?" Ross replied, "You mean a third-rate artist."
***
© Copyright Bruce D. Bruce; All Rights Reserved
***
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Reader Comment
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We are all only temporarily able bodied.
Thanks, Linda!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
"IF YOU GIVE A MOUSE A COOKIE."
THE REPUBLICAN LIARS.
"NO."
"BRING IT".
MIKE PENCE AND THE DEAD END-END GAME.
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
If you've ever thought about sending Marty a donation this would be an excellent time.
Wins $3 Million Physics Prize - And Gives It Away
Jocelyn Bell Burnell
Jocelyn Bell Burnell is responsible for one of the most important astrophysics discoveries of the 20th century: the radio pulsar. The discovery, which she made as graduate student, earned a Nobel Prize in 1974. And it could one day form the basis of a "galactic positioning system" for navigating outside our solar system.
But Bell Burnell didn't collect the Nobel. Instead, as NPR reported, the award went to her supervisor at the University of Cambridge, Antony Hewish - who had built the necessary radio telescope with her but didn't discover the pulsar.
Now, 34 years later, Bell Burnell has recieved the much heftier Breakthrough Prize for the same discovery, and for her scientific leadership in the years since. In 1974, the Nobel comittee gave away about $124,000 to winners (about $620,000 adjusted for inflation). Hewish would have recieved half of that, after splitting the prize with another radio astronomer who won the same year. The Breakthrough Prize, funded by Sergey Brin, Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg, Ma Huateng, Yuri and Julia Milner, and Anne Wojcicki, comes with a prize of $3 million, making it the largest scientific award in the world.
Bell Burnell told the BBC that she plans to give the money away, setting up a scholarship to support women and ethnic minorities interested in science.
"I don't want or need the money myself, and it seemed to me that this was perhaps the best use I could put to it," she said in her BBC interview, adding that she believes unconscious bias keeps such groups out of science and that the fact of her own status as an outsider at Cambridge helped her make her universe-unlocking discovery.
Jocelyn Bell Burnell
Retreats On 'Popular Film' Category
Oscars
The Academy of Motion Pictures said on Thursday it would not go ahead with its proposed new "popular film" Oscar category at next year's awards ceremony.
The proposal, announced just a month ago, was met with a huge backlash from the movie industry and film reviewers who said it would create a two-tier system of popular and unpopular films.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences said in a statement that "implementing any new award nine months into the year creates challenges for films that have already been released" and that the proposal needed further discussion.
It said it would "not present the new Oscars category at the upcoming 91st awards" in February 2019.
The idea of a separate category for popular films was widely seen as a bid to increase television viewers for the annual Oscar ceremony. The U.S. audience for the March 2018 ceremony was 26.5 million viewers, the smallest in the awards' 90-year history
Oscars
'Gilligan's Island'
Dawn Wells
As we learned from former Cosby Show actor Geoffrey Owens, who people tried to shameafter they learned he was working at Trader Joe's, just because someone appeared in a hit TV show doesn't mean they're set for life. Dawn Wells, who played Mary Ann on Gilligan's Island (an iconic character on an iconic show), is broke after a "life-threatening surgery" and is soliciting donations to get herself back on her feet via GoFundMe.
In the 24 hours since news broke that Wells - who had an "unexpected accident that required hospitalization for two months" and needed "a very long time" after that "to rest and heal," according to her makeup artist friend Dugg Kirkpatrick, who started the campaign - was in need, the fundraiser has collected over $50,000 toward the $180,000 goal. (The campaign was launched on Aug. 27.) The most recent campaign update says Wells found an apartment "in a fab retirement village" in Glendale, Calif. The actress has since spoken out about the "outpouring" - and opened up a little about what got her there.
Wells, 79, described herself as "amazed at the kindness and affection," in a post on Facebook. "A dear dear friend of mine with a big heart was trying to help me with some common issues we all understand and some must face." He created the fundraiser "with the love [and] emotion" of "someone protecting their child" after she told him in a recent conversation, "'I don't know how this happened. I thought I was taking all the proper steps to ensure my golden years. Now, here I am, no family, no husband, no kids, and no money.'"
Wells, who was married to talent agent Larry Rosen for five years in the '60s - during her Gilligan's Island run - ended by saying she's "grateful that God has given me so many friends and fans who care, or it would all be too … overwhelming." She also added that her outlook is "positive" and she looks forward to connecting with her generous fans "in my travels."
Dawn Wells
Curtain Call
'Frozen'
Cold may not bother the cast of "Frozen" on Broadway, but a Donald Trumpsupporter certainly did during an unexpectedly political curtain call for the kid-friendly show.
While the cast took bows after Wednesday night's performance, a front-row audience member sporting a "Make America Great Again" visor decided to start waving a "Trump 2020? flag.
Actor Timothy R. Hughes, who plays the Troll King in the Broadway adaptation of the blockbuster Disney musical, was having absolutely none of it, however. Hughes snatched the flag from onstage, disposed of it quickly and continued his bows.
Hughes later explained his intervention on Instagram and refused to apologize to the "disrespectful man trying to interrupt this moment with a pathetic political platform."
"What does it say about our country and politics when a man at the show tonight felt the need to protest Disney's Frozen on Broadway with a pro Trump flag??" Hughes wrote alongside a video of the incident. "How frightening is it that our show's messages of love, acceptance, and diversity have become the opposition to supporting Trump?
'Frozen'
'Abortion-Inducing Drugs'
Confirmation Hearing
On the third day of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation hearing in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee, he referred to contraception as "abortion-inducing drugs."
Judge Kavanaugh was responding to a question from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Zodiac) on Thursday about his 2015 dissent in the Priests for Life v. HHS case. Kavanaugh had sided with the religious organization, which didn't want to provide employees with insurance coverage for contraceptives.
Priests for Life, a Catholic group of celibate men that opposes abortion rights, filed a lawsuit against the Department of Health and Human Services in 2013 over the provision under the Affordable Care Act that required certain health care providers to cover birth control. The group argued that the provision was a violation of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act ? the same premise of the Hobby Lobby lawsuit in 2014.
A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled against Priests for Life in 2014. When the group tried and failed to get a full court hearing the next year, Kavanaugh dissented to lay out why he would have ruled for them.
Confirmation Hearing
Administration Moves To Detain Longer
Migrant Families
The Trump administration on Thursday moved to abandon a longstanding court settlement that limits how long immigrant children can be kept locked up, proposing new regulations that would allow the government to detain families until their immigration cases are decided.
Homeland Security officials said that ending the so-called Flores agreement of 1997 will speed up the handling of asylum requests while also deterring people from illegally crossing the Mexican border.
"It is sickening to see the United States government looking for ways to jail more children for longer," said Omar Jadwat, director of the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project. "And it's yet another example of the Trump administration's hostility toward immigrants resulting in a policy incompatible with the most basic human values."
The Flores agreement requires the government to keep children in the least restrictive setting possible and to release them generally after 20 days in detention. For decades, because of those restrictions, many parents and children caught trying to slip into the country have been released into the U.S. while their asylum requests wind their way through the courts - a practice President Donald Trump has decried as "catch-and-release."
Homeland Security did not say how long it expects families to be kept locked up. But immigration officials say asylum cases involving detained families move much more quickly, taking months instead of years to resolve, in part because there are none of the delays that result when immigrants set free in the U.S. fail to show up for a hearing.
Migrant Families
Permanent Bans
Twitter
Twitter permanently banned right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and his Infowars show for abusive behavior, a day after CEO Jack Dorsey testified before Congress about alleged bias against conservatives on the platform.
The company said Jones won't be able to create new accounts on Twitter or take over any existing ones. In a tweet, it said it would continue to monitor reports about other accounts potentially associated with Jones or Infowars, and will "take action" if it finds any attempts to circumvent the ban.
Twitter said Jones posted a video on Wednesday that violates the company's policy against "abusive behavior." That video showed Jones berating CNN journalist Oliver Darcy for some 10 minutes in between two congressional hearings on social media. Dorsey testified at both hearings, but did not appear to witness the confrontation.
Jones had about 900,000 followers on Twitter. Infowars had about 430,000. Jones did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Twitter had previously suspended Jones for a week. But until now it had resisted muzzling Jones further. Other tech companies have limited Jones by suspending him for longer periods, as Facebook did, and by taking down his pages and radio stations.
Twitter
Michael Moore Thinks So
Gwen Stefani?
At the risk of distracting everyone from figuring out which White House official wrote that New York Times op-ed, there's a new political conspiracy theory that demands our attention - if only because it's so out of left field.
In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter, filmmaker Michael Moore floats his explanation for why Donald Trump (R-Failing) is sitting in the Oval Office: The fault lies with Gwen Stefani. Or, rather, the NBC executives who agreed to pay her a hefty sum for starring as a coach on the reality music competition The Voice.
According to Moore - whose latest documentary, Fahrenheit 11/9, examines the current POTUS's election victory - there's speculation that Trump was so upset upon learning that NBC was giving Stefani a bigger paycheck than he received as host of The Apprentice, he decided to run for president.
In other words, seeking the highest office in the land wasn't about service - or even prestige; it was about putting NBC in its place.
"He'd been talking about running for president since 1988, but he didn't really want to be president," Moore told the publication. "There's no penthouse in the White House. And he doesn't want to live in a black city. He was trying to pit NBC against another network, but it just went off the rails."
Gwen Stefani?
Top 20
Global Concert Tours
The Top 20 Global Concert Tours ranks artists by average box office gross per city and includes the average ticket price for shows Worldwide. The list is based on data provided to the trade publication Pollstar by concert promoters and venue managers. Week of September 5, 2018:
1. Ed Sheeran; $13,398,617; $92.62.
2. Taylor Swift; $10,894,795; $128.49.
3. The Rolling Stones; $8,968,275; $155.26.
4. Jay-Z / Beyoncé; $6,453,138; $112.29.
5. Celine Dion; $4,782,217; $221.19.
6. Guns N' Roses; $4,127,170; $96.46.
7. U2; $3,617,679; $140.39.
8. Eagles; $3,119,623; $154.42.
9. Kenny Chesney; $2,812,220; $86.55.
10. Pink; $2,777,807; $137.10.
11. Justin Timberlake; $2,463,036; $121.66.
12. "Springsteen On Broadway"; $2,056,814; $508.70.
13. Roger Waters; $1,965,224; $101.22.
14. Dead & Company; $1,851,279; $71.04.
15. Iron Maiden; $1,696,737; $80.16.
16. Journey / Def Leppard; $1,558,021; $92.14.
17. Depeche Mode; $1,498,295; $94.93.
18. Katy Perry; $1,481,306; $78.56.
19. André Rieu; $1,453,246; $90.88.
20. Paul Simon; $1,451,357; $101.41.
Global Concert Tours
In Memory
Burt Reynolds
Burt Reynolds, the handsome film and television star known for his acclaimed performances in ''Deliverance'' and ''Boogie Nights,'' commercial hits such as ''Smokey and the Bandit'' and for an active off-screen love life which included relationships with Loni Anderson and Sally Field, has died at age 82.
The mustached, smirking Reynolds inspired a wide range of responses over his long, erratic career: critical acclaim and critical scorn, popular success and box office bombs. Reynolds made scores of movies, ranging from lightweight fare such as the hits ''The Cannonball Run'' and ''Smokey and the Bandit'' to more serious films like ''The Longest Yard'' and ''The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing.''
He received some of the film world's highest and lowest honors. He was nominated for an Oscar for ''Boogie Nights,'' the Paul Thomas Anderson film about the pornography industry; won an Emmy for the TV series ''Evening Shade,'' and was praised for his starring role in ''Deliverance.''
But he also was a frequent nominee for the Razzie, the tongue-in-cheek award for Hollywood's worst performance, and his personal life provided ongoing drama, particularly after an acrimonious divorce from Anderson in 1995. He had a troubled marriage to Judy Carne, a romance with Dinah Shore and a relationship with Field damaged by his acknowledged jealousy of her success.
Born in Lansing, Michigan and raised in Florida, he was an all-Southern Conference running back at Florida State University in the 1950s. Reynolds appeared headed to the NFL until a knee injury and an automobile accident ended his chances. He dropped out of college and drifted to New York, where he worked as a dockhand, dance-hall bouncer, bodyguard and dish washer before returning to Florida in 1957 and enrolling in acting classes at Palm Beach Junior College.
After moving to Hollywood, he found work as a stuntman, including one job that consisted of flying through a glass window. As a star, he often performed his own stunts, and he played a stuntman in the 1978 film ''Hooper,'' one of his better reviewed films.
Because of his dark features, he was cast frequently as an Indian early in his career, including the title role in the 1967 spaghetti western ''Navajo Joe.'' He also played Iroquois Indian detective John Hawk in the short-lived 1966 TV series ''Hawk.
In the 1960s he made dozens of guest-star appearances on such TV shows as ''The Twilight Zone'' and ''Perry Mason.'' His first film role came in 1961's ''Angel Baby,'' and he followed it with numerous other mediocre movies, the kind, he liked to joke, that were shown in airplanes and prisons.
In the early 1970s, director John Boorman was impressed by how confidently Reynolds handled himself when subbing for Carson as host of ''The Tonight Show.'' Boorman thought he might be right for a film adaptation of James Dickey's novel ''Deliverance.''
Reynolds also directed a few of the films he starred in, including ''Gator,'' ''Sharky's Machine'' and ''Stick,'' and made cameo appearances in the Hollywood spoof ''The Player'' and Woody Allen's ''Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask).''
In the 1980s, his career was nearly destroyed when false rumors surfaced that he was infected with the AIDS virus, in the height of hysteria over the disease. He had injured his jaw making the 1984 comedy ''City Heat'' with Clint Eastwood. Barely able to eat, he lost 50 pounds and suddenly looked ill and emaciated.
He eventually regained his health, and in 1988 he married Anderson. The actress, one of the stars of the sitcom ''WKRP in Cincinnati,'' had met him on a talk show.
Burton Leon Reynolds was born on Feb. 11, 1936, the son of a police chief who looked down on his son's ambitions to become an actor. After several years in California, he returned in 1969 to Florida, where he had gone to college. He bought eight acres of waterfront property in the wealthy community of Jupiter and spent most of the rest of his life there, devoting much of his later years to his only son, Quinton, whom he had adopted with Anderson.
Burt Reynolds
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