Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Tom Danehy: These are a few of Tom's favorite things in 2018 (Tucson Weekly)
As I've mentioned (far too many times) in the past, I read almost exclusively non-fiction books.
Helaine Olen: Dollar stores understand the age of inequality better than almost any other business (Washington Post)
When I enter the Dollar Tree near my New York apartment, I'm greeted by piles of Christmas cards, wrapping paper and bows organized haphazardly, spilling out of their appointed bins and onto the floor. It's not neat, but that doesn't matter. No one goes to a dollar store because they are seeking a luxury retail experience. They go because they hope to - or need to - find a bargain.
Helaine Olen: How Ivanka Trump could benefit from a tax break she promoted (Washington Post)
What [Ivanka] Trump didn't mention as frequently was that the tax package was quite possibly a personal financial win for her and husband, Jared Kushner. Her good "fortune" came via something else she was instrumental in bringing into the tax package - a plan to offer real estate investors the opportunity to delay capital gains bills for developing projects in what the government deemed eligible economically disadvantaged areas, something known as "Opportunity Zones."
Constance Grady, Todd VanDerWerff, Eleanor Barkhorn, Alex Abad-Santos, and Aja Romano: 10 years later, is The Hunger Games still shocking? (Vox)
Four Hunger Games fans and one skeptic debate the franchise on its 10-year anniversary.
Chavie Lieber: "'Free trial' shopping scams are on the rise" (Vox)
Picture this scenario: You're scrolling through Instagram when you see an ad for a moisturizer. It looks pretty decent, and it's free! You hand over your credit card info to pay for shipping. The cream, when it arrives, sucks, but still seems all in all like a pretty good deal. Two months later, though, you learn that not only have you been charged for the allegedly free product, but you've also unwittingly signed up for a recurring monthly subscription.
John Semley: In Defence of Hate (Walrus)
Hatred doesn't have to be a formless, frothing resentment. It can also work as an urgent corrective.
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Presenting
Michael Egan
answered:
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Reader Comment
mcdonalds straws
some guy
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Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
from Bruce
Anecdotes
• Film director and screenplay writer Kevin Smith is a funny guy, as is amply demonstrated in the question-and-answer sessions he has with his fans in his numerous live shows called "An Evening with Kevin Smith." He says, "There's no such thing as a dopey question. In fact, the worse the question is, the better for me, because we can have some fun with it." Other people may disagree with Mr. Smith and say that some questions are, in fact, dopey. For example, Mr. Smith remembers, "One guy at a show came up to the mic and said, 'Let's say your wife is in a horrible accident and the only way to save her is to put her brain in the body of an 8-year-old girl.' And then he wants to know what our sex life would be like." As Mr. Smith correctly points out, "Marty Scorsese never gets questions like that."
• Educator Alice Trillin once listened to a speech by New York governor George Pataki in which he spoke about his older brother, who grew up in a home with modest financial resources but was accepted to Yale. Their post office worker father drove to New Haven, Connecticut, to ask the Yale director of admissions how the son of a postal worker could be expected to go to Yale without a scholarship. (The director of admissions immediately called the Yale Westchester Alumni Association to find a solution to that particular problem.) After governor Pataki had finished the speech, Ms. Trillin told him, "That was one of the best speeches I've ever heard. Why in the world are you a Republican?"
• Orson Welles was multi-talented, although multi-geniused might be a better adjective. He spent a lot of time doing things to make money so that he could make his own independent films, and many people think that some of the things he worked on were not worthy of his genius. Sometimes, late in his life, he gave lectures in middle America to audiences that did not fill all of the seats available. He would introduce himself, correctly, as a film director, an actor, a writer, a painter, a designer, and a magician, and then he would scan the audience and say, "Isn't it strange that there are so many of me and so few of you?"
• Ian McEwan wanted to learn to speak correctly when he was young; therefore, he arranged for his best friend, Mark Wing-Davey, whom he calls "a rare and genuine middle-class type," to say the word "did" whenever Ian mistakenly said the word "done." One day, Ian gave an oral presentation in history class on the reforms of Pope Gregory VII. Ian mistakenly said the word "done," Mark said the word "did," and the history teacher became angry at what he thought was Mark's rudeness. Fortunately, Ian was able to explain what had happened.
• Al Capp, the cartoonist of Li'l Abner, frequently lectured. He especially enjoyed question-and-answer sessions, and before his lectures audience members would be given index cards on which were printed this message: "Al Capp Is An Expert On Nothing But Has An Opinion On Everything. What Is Your Question?" He would compose witty and/or thought-provoking answers to the questions, then deliver them at the public-speaking event. For example: "Are you for or against euthanasia? A: For whom? Clarify."
• Resistance can be successful, at least temporarily. On January 13, 1943, a Nazi leader named Paul Geisler made a speech at the University of Munich. In his speech, he stated that women ought not to be students at the university; instead, they ought to be making German babies. Insulted, several women left the lecture hall and were immediately arrested. This enraged the male students, who beat up Paul Geisler until the women were released. Later, the Nazi leader apologized publicly for his remarks.
• In 1985, American novelist Don DeLillo won the National Book Award for his novel White Noise. His acceptance speech was brief: He simply stood up and said, "I'm sorry I couldn't be here tonight, but I thank you all for coming."
***
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***
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Current Events
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Selected Readings
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In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Was expecting the plumber's visit would cost an arm & a leg, but it was only a hand and some fingers.
Cringes Over Duet
Megan Mullally
President-for-now Donald Trump (R-Yeti Pubes) shared a Throwback Thursday video that left actress Megan Mullally saying, "omg."
Trump took to Twitter to post a clip of himself from his "Apprentice" days singing a playful duet with the "Will & Grace" actress during the 2006 Emmy awards.
Portraying character Karen Walker, Mullally shared an embrace with an overall-clad Trump while singing the theme song to "Green Acres," a 1960s sitcom about a couple who traded the glitz and glamour of New York City for a country farm.
The actress, who was tapped to host the 2019 Screen Actors Guild Awards, responded to the unearthed archive by first tweeting a simple "omg."
She later added: "if you guys need me, i'll be in a hole in the ground."
Megan Mullally
Donald Trump & Megan Mullally - Green Acres at the Emmys - YouTube
Releases Tribute To NASA Spacecraft
Brian May
Jamming and astrophysics go hand-in-hand for Queen lead guitarist Brian May, who announced Wednesday he is releasing a musical tribute to a far-flung NASA spacecraft that is about to make history.
The US space agency's New Horizon's spacecraft will soon make the most distant flyby of a cosmic object ever, zipping by an object called Ultima Thule-a billion miles (1.6 billion kilometers) beyond Pluto, on January 1.
A NASA scientist involved with the mission asked the legendary British guitarist behind "Bohemian Rhapsody"-who also holds a doctorate in astrophysics-to contribute some music to play as the flyby occurs.
And May, 71, agreed. The "New Horizons" track (Ultima Thule mix), which will be released New Year's Day, is his first solo single since 1998.
Portions of the wailing guitar track, overlaid with the voice of the late legendary scientist Stephen Hawking, are already available on www.brianmay.com.
Brian May
Never Cashed Check
Stephen King
Stephen King doesn't need money. This year alone, the best-selling author made over $27 million (via Forbes), so you have to imagine the coin he was pulling back in the late '80s, when director Frank Darabont purchased the rights to adapt his 1982 novella Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption. That's probably why the Master of Horror never felt the need to cash in his $5,000 royalty check.
In a new profile by The Wall Street Journal that chronicles the ensuing success of Darabont's Oscar-nominated adaptation, it was revealed that King not only never cashed the check, but also sent it back to Darabont. As the article states, "Years after Shawshankcame out, the author got the check framed and mailed it back to the director with a note inscribed: 'In case you ever need bail money. Love, Steve.'"
Although it went home empty-handed at the Oscars the following year, The Shawshank Redemption is now considered by many critics and fans to be one of the greatest films of all time. As The Wall Street Journal points out in their piece, the film has since become one of the highest valued assets in Warner Bros. $1.5 billion library and continues to be a dominating force on cable television.
Darabont would go on to adapt two more King books. In 1999, he brought to life another prison parable with The Green Mile, and eight years later would deliver one of the more harrowing movies of the aughts with 2007's The Mist.
Stephen King
No More 'Who Is America?'
Sacha Baron Cohen
Conservative politicians can breathe a sigh of relief: Comedian Sacha Baron Cohen has ruled out doing a second season "Who Is America?"
In the Showtime sketch show's one-and-only season, a disguised Cohen duped his way into interviews with former Vice President Dick Cheney(whom he asked to autograph a waterboarding kit), 2008 vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson (in a segment about arming toddlers). And then there was Alabama judge-turned-Senate candidate Roy Moore, who walked out after the comedian's fake pedophile detector went off.
Palin complained bitterly in public, accusing Cohen and Showtime of mocking wounded veterans, while Moore filed a $95 million defamation suit.
The British comic is quitting while he's ahead because knows he's lost the ability to ambush his subjects.
Cohen cited a couple of other reasons for making "Who Is America" a one-and-done deal. In order to pull off any new stunts, he'd have to retire the Season 1 characters and come up with new ones, which he doesn't have.
Sacha Baron Cohen
Plans To Open Protected Land
Arctic
The Trump administration has revealed details of a controversial plan to open up a pristine, protected area of the Arctic - a refuge for polar bears and Native Alaskans - to oil and gas development.
In a move that marked a significant step forward in its efforts to establish fossil fuel extraction in in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the government published a draft report of an environmental impact assessment.
The report says exploitation of the area, which Republicans have been seeking since the 1970s, would have the potential to impact everything from indigenous hunters and wildlife, to air and water quality. It also says there is the impact from increased greenhouse gas emissions from exploration and development.
Despite this, the interior ministry has said opening the refuge is the way for the country to go. In a statement, outgoing interior secretary Ryan Zinke called the move necessary.
"There's no precedent for anything done this quickly for an environmental review of this scale," Adam Kolton, executive director of the Alaska Wilderness League, told the Washington Post. "This is really a rubber-stamp exercise rather than an effort to mitigate the impact to wildlife on the coastal plain."
Arctic
Around Since the Birth of Socrates
Humongous Fungus
A humongous fungus lurking underground in Michigan is exceptionally old, tremendously heavy and has a curiously low mutation rate, a new study finds.
Here are the fungus' impressive stats: It's at least 2,500 years old (although it's likely much older), weighs nearly 882,000 lbs. (400,000 kilograms) and spans about 75 hectares (0.75 square kilometers, or 140 American football fields). As for its mutation rate, or the rate at which random genetic tweaks occur, it's fleetingly low, said study co-principal investigator Johann Bruhn, a professor emeritus of plant sciences at the University of Missouri.
Bruhn first came across the absolute unit (Armillaria gallica) in the late 1980s, when he was doing an unrelated experiment in the forest of Michigan's Upper Peninsula. He roped in two more fungal experts, James Anderson, now at the University of Toronto, and Myron Smith, now at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, who are also co-principal investigators on the new study. The giant fungus stunned the researchers, who initially vastly underestimated its age and size. (Back then, they thought the fungus was about 1,500 years old, 220,000 lbs. (100,000 kg) and about 37 hectares (0.3 square km), according to their 1992 study published in the journal Nature.)
At the time, the public went bonkers over the giant fungus, which is also known as the honey mushroom, Bruhn recalled. Late night comedian David Letterman made a "Top 10" list about it; Johnny Carson cracked jokes; and a New York City restaurant even called to see if it could purchase the fungus to serve on its dinner menu.
Now, nearly 30 years later, the scientists' latest experiments reveal the true immensity of A. gallica, Bruhn said. Despite its size, the fungus is largely underground, hidden from view. The fungus uses some of the energy it obtains from decaying a woody foodbase to grow branching tendrils known as rhizomorphs, which travel through the forest floor in search of their next meal. Rhizomorphs attach themselves to tree roots. Once the tree becomes vulnerable, for instance because of drought or pests or fire, the fungus attacks, sapping the tree's nutrients and decaying its wood into a white rot. Every fall, the fungus sprouts mushrooms, which allow the fungus to reproduce.
Humongous Fungus
Dive-Bombing For Love
Male Hummingbirds
When it comes to flirting, animals know how to put on a show. In the bird world, males often go to great lengths to attract female attention, like peacocks shaking their tail feathers and manakins performing complex dance moves. These behaviors often stimulate multiple senses, making them hard for biologists to quantify.
Hummingbirds are no exception when it comes to snazzy performances, as males of many species perform spectacular courtship dives. Broad-tailed hummingbirds (Selasphorus platycercus) fly up to 100 feet in the air before sweeping down toward a perched female, then climb back up for a subsequent dive in the opposite direction. At the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory in Gothic, Colorado, home to a population of breeding broad-tailed hummingbirds, researchers from Princeton University have been investigating how hummingbirds combine speed, sound and color in their displays. Their work appears in the Dec. 18 issue of the journal Nature Communications.
"The dives are truly amazing feats for such small birds," said Benedict Hogan, a postdoctoral research associate in ecology and evolutionary biology and the study's lead author. "We know from previous work that the males can reach really high speeds. They combine that speed with intriguing noises generated by their wing and tail feathers, and of course with their brightly iridescent plumage." But how do these different components fit together, and what might a dive sound like and look like to a female?
To explore this, Hogan and Mary Caswell Stoddard, an assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and the study's senior author, created video and audio recordings of 48 dives performed by wild male broad-tailed hummingbirds. They then used image-tracking software to estimate each male's trajectory and speed throughout the dive. Combining these estimates with the audio data, the researchers measured the precise time at which the males produce a mechanical "buzz" with their tail feathers.
To incorporate information about iridescent plumage color, which is difficult to extract from the video recordings, the team headed to the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Using a multi-angle imaging technique and an ultraviolet-sensitive camera, they photographed broad-tailed hummingbird specimens. Hummingbirds are tetrachromatic -- their eyes have four color cones, one of which is sensitive to ultraviolet wavelengths -- so by combining the photographs with a model of hummingbird color vision and details of the U-shaped flight path, the researchers were able to estimate a female "bird's-eye view" of the male's iridescent throat feathers.
Male Hummingbirds
In Memory
Peter Masterson
Peter Masterson, a creative triple threat from Texas as an actor, director, and writer, died Tuesday from complications with Parkinson's disease. He was 84.
Masterson, born Carlos Masterson, passed away at his home in Kinderhook, New York, his son Peter Masterson Jr. confirmed to the Associated Press.
As an actor, Masterson appeared in 1968's Counterpoint, 1973's The Exorcist, and 1975's The Stepford Wives. As a director, he helmed the 1985 adaptation of The Trip to Bountiful, followed by titles like Full Moon in Blue Water in 1988, Night Game in 1989, and Arctic Blue in 1993.
He also famously wrote the book for the musical The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas with Larry L. King, bringing the story of a brothel known as the Chicken Ranch to Broadway in 1978. Masterson's wife, Carlin Glynn, starred in the production and went on to win a Tony Award. Having also co-directed Whorehouse, Masterson received two Tony nominations himself.
A film based on the musical hit the big screen in 1982 with a cast featuring Dolly Parton and Burt Reynolds. Masterson was initially supposed to co-direct the adaptation, but those duties eventually went to Colin Higgins.
The last film Masterson directed was 2005's Whiskey School, in which friends of an alcoholic playwright stage an intervention.
Masterson is survived by Glynn, Masterson Jr., and daughters Alexandra Masterson and Mary Stuart Masterson, who made her film debut opposite her father in The Stepford Wives.
Peter Masterson
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