Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Lucy Mangan: "Inclusive feminism is the only way to finish what the suffragettes started" Stylist)
When the women's suffrage movement began, it started among middle-class women who aimed at getting the vote for… other middle-class women. Then crazy radicals started thinking that maybe working-class women were worth including too, and the movement grew to a critical mass that led to… middle-class women getting the vote.
Garrison Keillor: Garrison's response to Jon McTaggart's letter of Jan. 23, 2018
I'm a writer and I have better things to do than fight with a committee of faceless people who are in a panic. And I'm glad not to have any connection with an organization that operates like that.
Garrison Keillor: Columnist recuses himself
The way I see it is, I'm grateful there are so many people smarter than I and what more can I say? I come from a line of Keillor men who suddenly dropped dead of heart failure and thanks to a great many brilliant people in the medical sciences, I have not. I have thought about them often since the summer of 2001 when Dr. Orszulak, in a chilly room full of blueish light, opened my chest and sewed up the mitral valve in my heart. This was after several months of severe fatigue and breathlessness from climbing short flights of stairs.
Garrison Keillor: Time passes, lovers still welcome
I was 50, a faded writer, the solemn-faced host of a radio show, and she was a classy violinist, 15 years younger. I knew her older sister in St. Paul who told me that someday I should look up Jenny and I did and we sat at lunch and talked for almost three hours. We married a couple years later. Our little girl came along in 1997.
Lucy Mangan: "Why do we believe that motherhood will fundamentally change us?" (Stylist)
It hurts my head and my heart (and my vagina, which has an unnecessarily good memory) that the pregnancy of Jacinda Ardern, the prime minister of New Zealand who has announced that she's expecting her first child in June, has been the occasion of so much panic. How will she govern, commentators scream, when there are peas to puree? Will she still be the leader the people voted for or will she gain a new personality and policies once she is a mother?
Ed Condran: Henry Rollins regales us with tales of his traveling slideshow (Philly Voice)
Rollins believes Americans would be surprised by the reception he received in Tehran. "The vibe I got in Iran was really good," Rollins said. "Everyone was very friendly to me. They told me how much they love America. They wanted me to move in and meet a nice Iranian girl and settle down."
Jonathan Jones: Was Picasso a misogynist? (The Guardian)
The greatest artist of the 20th century has been characterised as a bully, a narcissist and a man who feared as well as desired women. But are the stories really true? Jonathan Jones tackles the six million euro question.
Photographer Exposes The 'Truth' Behind Professional Portraits, And It May Surprise You (Bored Panda)
… Brazilian wedding and family photographer Gilmar Silva has put together a brilliant series of 'behind-the-scenes' reveals that prove professional photoshoots are definitely not always what they seem - and we're not just talking about the amount of Photoshop that comes into play.
BYU Cougarettes + Cosmo (YouTube)
Timeout performance at BYU v Boise State game 10/6/17
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Presenting
Michael Egan
said:
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Reader Comment
Current Events
Preach it!
Joy Reid on President's Day
Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
from Marc Perkel
Marc's Guide to Curing Cancer
So far so good on beating cancer for now. I'm doing fine. At the end of the month I'll be 16 months into an 8 month mean lifespan. And yesterday I went on a 7 mile hike and managed to keep up with the hiking group I was with. So, doing something right.
Still waiting for future test results and should see things headed in the right direction. I can say that it's not likely that anything dire happens in the short term so that means that I should have time to make several more attempts at this. So even if it doesn't work the first time there are a lot of variations to try. So if there's bad news it will help me pick the next radiation target.
I have written a "how to" guide for oncologists to perform the treatment that I got. I'm convinced that I'm definitely onto something and whether it works for me or not isn't the definitive test. I know if other people tried this that it would work for some of them, and if they improve it that it will work for a lot of them.
The guide is quite detailed and any doctor reading this can understand the procedure at every level. I also go into detail as to how it works, how I figured it out, and variations and improvements that could be tried to enhance it. I also introduce new ways to look at the problem. There is a lot of room for improvement and I think that doctors reading it will see what I'm talking about and want to build on it. And it's written so that if you're not a doctor you can still follow it. It also has a personal story revealing that I'm the class clown of cancer support group. I give great interviews and I look pretty hot in a lab coat.
So, feel free to read this and see what I'm talking about. But if any of you want to help then pass this around to both doctors and cancer patients. I need some media coverage. I'm looking for as many eyeballs as possible to read these ideas. Even if this isn't the solution, it's definitely on the right track. After all, I did hike 7 miles yesterday. And this hiking group wasn't moving slow. So if this isn't working then, why am I still here?
I also see curing cancer as more of an engineering problem that a medical problem. So if you are good at solving problems and most of what you know about medicine was watching the Dr. House MD TV show, then you're at the level I was at when I started. So anyone can jump in and be part of the solution.
Here is a link to my guide: Oncologists Guide to Curing Cancer using Abscopal Effect
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
WE MUST DESTROY THE CHEATER CASTE!
THE PLANT WARS.
REWRITING THE EVANGELICAL CODE OF ETHICS.
COMMIE DON.
COMMIE DON. PART TWO.
COMMIE DON. PART THREE.
SLOWLY THEY TURN.
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
The first ice cream truck of spring rolled by this afternoon.
'Three Billboards' Conquers
BAFTA Awards
Martin McDonagh's "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri" was the big winner at the 71st British Academy Film Awards, taking five awards including both best film and best British film. The film's stars, Frances McDormand and Sam Rockwell, won best actress and best supporting actor, respectively, while McDonagh took home best original screenplay.
McDonagh lost out in the best director category to "The Shape of Water's" Guillermo Del Toro. "The Shape of Water" took the second biggest haul of the night with three awards, while "Blade Runner 2049" and "Darkest Hour" took two apiece.
McDormand took to the stage in a red and black dress to accept the award for best actress. "As Martin said I have a little trouble with compliance but I want you to know I stand in alliance with my sisters in black," said McDormand of her outfit, a contrast to most attendees who had worn black in support of the Time's Up movement. "In drama school I was told I wasn't naturally gifted and I should work at it. So I did," joked the actress. It was McDormand's first BAFTA award after four nominations.
Gary Oldman won best actor for his role as Winston Churchill in Joe Wright's "Darkest Hour," after presenter Salma Hayek joked the winner was Frances McDormand. It was Oldman's first best actor BAFTA after three nominations - he was previously been nominated for Mike Leigh's "Prick Up Your Ears" and Tomas Alfredson's "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy." Oldman won BAFTAs for best British film and best screenplay for his directorial debut "Nil by Mouth."
Accepting his best director award, Guillermo Del Toro paid tribute to the legacy of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, Charlie Chaplin, Stan Laurel and novelist Mary Shelley amongst his British influences. "She gave voice to the voiceless," said the director of Shelley. It was the Mexican filmmaker's second BAFTA, after having won best foreign language film for his 2006 Spanish-language film "Pan's Labyrinth."
Allison Janney won supporting actress for her role in "I, Tonya." The actress joked she had to clear up a lie she had been perpetrating for years: that she hadn't actually graduated from the U.K.'s world renowned Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, but that she had done a two-week course there.
BAFTA Awards
New HQ
Apple
Place thousands of people distracted by iPhones in a building that is mostly transparent, and perhaps the results are inevitable.
Apple's new 175-acre headquarters, centred on a glass ring which hosts 12,000 staff, has become an architectural fascination since the first designs were unveiled seven years ago.
But after the Apple Park campus opened earlier this year, the technology giant has discovered one downside to its obsession with stylish aesthetics.
Apple employees reportedly keep walking into the glass panels which form the walls of the spaceship-like building. According to Marketwatch, at least two suffered cuts to their heads and required treatment by emergency services.
It is not clear how many incidents there have been, but at least seven people were reportedly injured on the first day after staff moved in.
Apple
La Miséreuse accroupie
Pablo Picasso
At first glance the undulating lines of Pablo Picasso's La Miséreuse accroupie (The Crouching Woman) appear to have been meticulously placed to hint at a shoulder, waist and hip beneath the beggar's green cloak.
But new scans of the Blue Period masterpiece suggest that the Spanish artist actually traced the contours of her back from an image of Barcelona on the canvas beneath.
X-rays have revealed an entirely different scene below Picasso's work, which experts think was a painting of the Parc del Labertint d'Horta, a formal garden on the outskirts of the city.
The garden was a popular spot for artists at the time, and the lost oil painting bears similarities to the work of Santiago Rusinol, a great friend of Picasso, and the leader of the Catalan modernist movement.
La Miséreuse accroupie was created at the height of Picasso's Blue Period in 1902, when the artist was suffering from major depression following the suicide of his friend Carlos Casagemas, who shot himself to death in a Paris café.
Pablo Picasso
Hair Discovered
George Washington
Tucked in the pages of a grimy, leather-bound almanac in the archives at New York's Union College was a tiny envelope with the hand-scrawled words "Washington's hair."
A librarian who had been cataloging old books gingerly opened the yellowed envelope to find a lock of silvery hair tied with a thread.
"It was one of those mind-blowing moments that happen every once in a while in a librarian's life," said John Myers, a catalog and metadata librarian at the college. "I thought, that doesn't mean George Washington, does it?" It apparently does.
While college officials can't say for sure it's the real deal, the historical evidence is there. The hair was discovered in a pocket-sized almanac for the year 1793 that belonged to Philip J. Schuyler, son of General Philip Schuyler, who served under Washington during the Revolutionary War and founded Union College in 1795.
Susan Holloway Scott, an independent scholar and author, said locks of hair were frequently given as gifts during Washington's day and it's likely Martha Washington gave the snip of her husband's hair to Eliza Schuyler, daughter of the general and wife of Alexander Hamilton.
George Washington
Trolling Little Marco
'3 Billboards In Florida'
Borrowing a scene from an Oscar-nominated film, three red billboard-sized messages have appeared in the streets of Miami and beyond to flame Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) for his inaction on gun control in the wake of the tragic school shooting in Parkland.
Together the signs, which are displayed on the sides of three trucks, read: "Slaughtered in school ... and still no gun control? How come, Marco Rubio?"
The signs echo a key plot element in the movie "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri." The billboards in the film, rented by a mother played by Frances McDormand, pose the same kind of question to the local sheriff concerning the unsolved murder of her daughter.
The Rubio signs, which have moved around Miami and outside the senator's office in nearby Doral, were arranged by online activist group Avaaz.
Rubio has received $3.3 million in campaign contributions from the National Rifle Association. The gun rights group has given Rubio an A+ for his NRA- friendly legislative positions.
'3 Billboards In Florida'
Foreign Workers
Mar-A-Lago
While President-for-now Donald Trump (R-Crooked) rails at American companies that hire foreign workers, he's not following his own advice. Of 144 openings at three of his properties, including Mar-a-Lago, only a single one went to an American, according to Department of Labor records. The rest went to seasonal foreign workers in the U.S. on special visas requested by the Trump Organization, reports Vox.
An examination of filings by the Trump Organization with the Labor Department from 2016 to 2017 reveals that a lone American worker, a cook, was hired in August 2016 among 144 open positions for servers, cooks, housekeepers and bartenders, Vox found. Most of the jobs were at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, Trump's favorite weekend getaway. The others were the National Golf Club in Briarcliff Manor, in New York, and Trump National Golf Club in Jupiter, Florida. The jobs generally pay $10 to $13 an hour.
Mar-a-Lago was granted 70 visas to bring in foreign workers just last year for the winter season beginning in October. That was a 9 percent increase over the previous year.
Since 2010 Mar-a-Lago alone has obtained a total of 500 H-2B visas for seasonal workers, many of them from Haiti and Romania, sources have told The New Yorker.
The H-2B visa program allows non-agricultural, seasonal employers - such as hotels - to hire foreign workers but only when the businesses can't find Americans to fill the jobs. The Trump administration temporarily expanded the program in 2017, which benefited Trump businesses. At the same time, the president restricted the H-1B program for highly skilled immigrants.
Mar-A-Lago
Trolls Posting Fake Stories
'Black Panther'
Audiences for this week's "Black Panther" premiere went all-out in celebration, and the film's opening weekend is expected to break records at the box office.
Unfortunately, the superhero movie, which boasts an almost entirely black cast and has been hailed for its positive representation of black people and African culture, has also brought the racist trolls out of the woodwork.
Since Thursday, numerous false reports have bubbled up on social media claiming that white viewers were physically attacked by black fans at showings of the movie. Twitter and Facebook users have been taking images from unrelated incidents and reposting them, falsely claiming that they are photos of themselves or loved ones after racially motivated attacks.
In one example, a Twitter user posted a photo showing the blood-covered face of a teenager who had been assaulted at a nightclub in Sweden last month, fact-checking website Snopes reports. The Twitter user, whose account has since been suspended, wrote, "i went to see #BlackPanther with my gf and a black teenager shouted 'u at the wrong theater' and smashed a bottle on her face."
Another widely circulated tweet showed a photo of a bloody paper towel. The caption claimed that "a group of black youths said this movie wasn't for me. I am white." However, a reverse Google image search indicates that the image was simply one of the top results for the search phrase "blood on paper towel."
'Black Panther'
A Movie A Day For 60 Years
Berlin
It's a love that was born in a cinema in 1950s Cold War Berlin and that has been nourished for over six decades by taking in at least a movie a day together.
At this week's Berlin film festival, Erika and Ulrich Gregor, now in their 80s, are absolute fixtures.
Year after year, they can be spotted gingerly making their way, arm in arm, from theatre to theatre to catch as many screenings each day as they can.
"We've watched thousands and thousands of films together," Ulrich, 85, told AFP in an interview at the Arsenal cinema they helped found.
It's that kind of shared passion that the Gregors say has kept their relationship thriving after nearly 60 years of marriage.
Berlin
Weekend Box Office
'Black Panther'
A wave of feverish anticipation, fawning critical acclaim and groundbreaking cultural meaning pushed "Black Panther" to a record-setting $192 million debut in U.S. and Canada theaters, firmly establishing the superhero sensation as a box-office landmark.
The Marvel film from the Walt Disney Co. blew past expectations to become the fifth-highest-grossing debut ever, not adjusting for inflation, following only "Star Wars: The Force Awakens," ''Star Wars: The Last Jedi," ''Jurassic World" and "The Avengers."
Last week's top film, the erotic romance sequel "Fifty Shades Freed," slid to third place, with $16.9 million in its second week for Universal. Sony's children's book adaptation "Peter Rabbit" held much stronger, taking the No. 2 spot with $17.3 million in its second week.
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to comScore. Where available, the latest international numbers for Friday through Sunday also are included. Final four-day domestic figures will be released Tuesday.
1. "Black Panther," $192 million ($169 million international).
2. "Peter Rabbit," $17.3 million.
3. "Fifty Shades Freed," $16.9 million ($47.7 million international).
4. "Jumanji Welcome to the Jungle," $7.9 million ($4.8 million international).
5. "The 15:17 to Paris," $7.7 million ($2.8 million international).
6. "The Greatest Showman," $5.1 million ($9.6 million international).
7. "Early Man," $3.2 million ($3.7 million international).
8. "Maze Runner: The Death Cure," $2.5 million ($11 million international).
9. "Winchester," $2.2 million.
10. "Samson," $2 million.
'Black Panther'
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