Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Hadley Freeman: "Here's my advice for teenage girls: don't make the same mistakes I did" (The Guardian)
First off, get to know yourself, ideally before you are in your mid-30s.
Hadley Freeman: "Marie Kondo, megastars and masturbatory congratulation: my night at the Oscars" (The Guardian)
Twelve months of bewildering screw-ups from the Academy has left the show looking shaky - and even the Vanity Fair party might be on its way out.
Suzanne Moore: Society is breaking down. Every day a new horror arises and I'm terrified (The Guardian)
Where can I find solace?
Suzanne Moore: What I learned when I had lunch with Theresa May (The Guardian)
Watching Theresa May play pool over the weekend I was reminded of a meal I shared with her, which left me in a state of existential despair.
Suzanne Moore: They can deface Marx's grave - but they'll never erase his ideas (The Guardian)
The defacing of Karl Marx's grave in Highgate cemetery is truly shocking. Red paint can be removed, but the hammer attack can't be reversed. I love his grave because of the inscription: "The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways: the point is to change it." That feels as alive and challenging as ever. Marx lived in London. His family is buried alongside him. We can argue all we like about his legacy, but this new act of vandalism is not an argument. It's incoherent thuggery.
Oliver Burkeman: Why it pays to cut yourself some slack (The Guardian)
If you don't have enough of something - money, say, or time - fixating on it could make the problem worse.
Alison Flood: Study finds Mr Greedy rivals Grapes of Wrath in reading complexity (The Guardian)
With regards to Steinbeck's low difficulty rating, [Cecelia Powell said] "that's why looking at the interest level we assign a book alongside its difficulty is so important - the difficulty indicates that a younger child could certainly read the words in that book, but would they be able to understand the complex themes? In no way does that book level indicate they would be able to understand them - it doesn't take into account the literary devices used, the underlying meanings … It is just, literally, can you read the words?"
Jonathan Jones: Why we can't help but see the whale in the forest as an omen (The Guardian)
The dead humpback whale lying in an Amazon rainforest clearing distils our knowledge that human actions have changed the climate and polluted the oceans.
Christina Zdanowicz and Alessandra Castelli: How a dead humpback whale ended up in a forest near the Amazon River (mor-tv.com)
The tides washed the whale's body to shore at Araruna Beach in the city of Soure, said Bicho D'agua oceanographer Maura Sousa. It's located on the island of Marajo, which sits at the mouth of the Amazon River. "During this season, the tide normally rises twice a day to almost 13 feet and floods the mangrove forest, bringing lots of trash, including trash from ships from a lot of places in the world," Sousa said. "This explains why an inflated carcass, due to the gases of the decomposition, was dragged into the mangrove forest," she said.
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Presenting
Michael Egan
took the day off.
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
from Bruce
Anecdotes
• Marty Ingels was married to actress/singer Shirley Jones and was a capable comedian in the TV sitcom I'm Dickens - He's Fenster. Unfortunately, through much of his career he suffered from panic attacks. Once, he stayed in his apartment for nine months, afraid to go out into the open air. He also once picked up his date for the evening - Shirley Jones - in a motor home so he technically wouldn't have to leave his home.
• Don Marquis suffered a series of strokes, which made him unable to work. Low on funds, he resigned from The Players Club. The treasurer of the club, David McKinley, wrote him a letter, to which Mr. Marquis responded, "My dear Dave, I have your letter in which you express the hope that Dame Fortune may be smiling on me. She is, but it is the most sarcastic goddam smile I ever saw on anyone's face."
• W.W. Jacobs, the author of Many Cargoes, met G.K. Chesterton at a dinner where Mr. Chesterton confessed to him that he had rheumatism and did not know how he was going to be able to give his speech. Mr. Chesterton solved his problem by leaning heavily on Mr. Jacobs' shoulder while giving the speech. Later, Mr. Jacobs said that the speech was good, but it seemed to him to be the longest speech he had ever sat through.
• A group of beggars afflicted with leprosy once asked Zen master Bankei to teach them. He accepted them as students, initiated them, and even washed and shaved their heads with his own hands. A baron saw Bankei doing this and was disgusted, so he brought water for Bankei to wash his hands. However, Bankei refused to accept the basin of water, saying, "Your disgust is filthier than their sores."
• Touring with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo in the 1930s and 1940s was difficult. Often, getting meals was a worry. While touring through the wintery Dakotas, ballerina Alicia Markova caught cold. She was unable to stay behind in a hotel to recuperate, so she traveled by train with the troupe and felt like she was ready to die. Fortunately, Adolf Bolm, a dancer, bought her some baby food at a train station. Heated up, the baby food proved to be a nourishing food she could keep down.
• In the old days of figure skating, competitions were held outside, causing hardship for both the skaters and the judges. Canadian judge John Machado once spent six hours in a blizzard, judging men's figures during the 1936 Olympics in Germany. He finally was forced to leave the ice because he contracted pneumonia.
• Actress Madge Titheradge had a reputation for fainting. In Theater Royal, she fainted at the end of the second act. Actress Dame Marie Tempest saw her fall; not being in a mood to tolerate such foolishness, she raised the stick which was part of her costume and was about to hit her - but Ms. Titheradge made a sudden recovery and picked herself off the floor.
• English wit Sydney Smith liked historian Thomas Macaulay, but he thought that his friend talked too much. Once Macaulay was ill, but Mr. Smith thought that the illness had improved his friend's conversation by making him "more agreeable than I have ever seen him - there were some gorgeous flashes of silence."
• Comedy writers Goodman Ace and Al Boasberg once went to the movies together. In the middle of the movie, Mr. Boasberg stood up and asked loudly, "Is there a Christian Scientist in the house?" A woman replied that she was, and she asked what he wanted. Mr. Boasberg replied, "Would you mind changing seats with me? I'm sitting in a draft."
• Ed Penisten died in his hometown of Chillicothe, Ohio, in 1965. For many years, he was a sportswriter, and he had been a sports editor for the Columbus Dispatch. After an illness, he asked his physician if he could engage in a "mild" form of sexual intercourse. His physician replied, "There ain't no such thing."
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Current Events
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Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
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In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Yep, more rain.
LGBTQ Community
Miley Cyrus
Miley Cyrus says she was an ally to the gay community when others in her circle were not.
The "Nothing Breaks Like a Heart" singer, 26, appeared on RuPaul's podcast, titled "RuPaul: What's the Tee With Michelle Visage," and recalled how she stood up in support of the LGBTQ community while working for Disney.
"I was one of the only kids on Disney that would come out and say that I supported all my gay friends," said Cyrus, who starred for four seasons on Hannah Montana, as a pop singer with a double life. "And I would write these songs. No one could say that. I was young and no one really said that. That was just always really important to me, to find what mattered to me."
Cyrus, who identifies as queer, says that being part of the LGBTQ community is also about, "being your f-ing self."
When asked by RuPaul whatever happened to her alter ego, Cyrus joked that Montana had probably headed down a dark path. "A lot of drugs," Cyrus joked.
Miley Cyrus
Google Doodle
Desi Arnaz
Producer, actor and musician Desi Arnaz has received one of the digital age's highest honors - he's been chosen as the Google Doodle to celebrate what would have been his 102nd birthday, his caricature being viewed hundreds of millions of times today.
Best known for his role as Ricky Ricardo on 1950s sitcom I Love Lucy, where he played the husband of real-life wife Lucille Ball, Arnaz was a pioneering figure in early television and later, with his own studio, innovated on reruns and syndication of the shows.
Arnaz was born Desiderio Alberto Arnaz y de Acha on March 2, 1917 in Santiago, Cuba, but his family decamped to Miami early in his life. His first career was in music, where he worked under band leader Xavier Cugat. Arnaz eventually launched his own band, which is credited with starting the Conga line craze in the US.
From there, he moved to the Broadway show Too Many Girls, later joining the movie version, where he met Lucille Ball. The two went on to create one of TV's first sitcoms in 1951, as Arnaz played bandleader Ricky Ricardo, who had a regular gig at the Tropicana nightclub. He parlayed that role into the real-life hit single Babalu.
Google said in a statement that Arnaz was a "trailblazer" in the American television industry.
Desi Arnaz
Syria
War Horses
A shadow of her former self after years of war, 11-year-old Arabian mare Karen stands quietly as a Syrian vet gently pushes a syringe into her pale grey neck.
Weak and withdrawn, Karen is unable to even whinny.
After almost eight years of war, she is one of dozens of Arabian horses from all over Syria recovering from the physical and psychological trauma of the fighting.
Prized for their beauty, endurance and speed, Arabian purebreds are one of the oldest horse breeds in the world.
In Syria, Bedouins have bred them in the north of the country for centuries, seeking to maintain the purity of the local bloodlines.
War Horses
Wrong About a Key Feature
Neanderthals
Neanderthals have a reputation they do not deserve. Hunched over and hairy, these ancient hominins are often depicted as primitive and uncultured, resembling apes more than us.
But a mounting body of evidence suggests that, in reality, we share more similarities than differences. And one of the most famous features of Neanderthals is actually wrong.
After more than a century of alternative views, a new study has reconfirmed that Neanderthals once walked fully upright with a posture not unlike our own. They weren't hunched after all.
The reanalysis is based on an elderly male Neanderthal that was found in La Chapelle-aux-Saints, France in 1911. Creating a virtual reconstruction of the ancient skeleton's pelvis and spine, the authors say that both the stress on the hip and the position of the pelvis are not so different from modern humans.
When the research was extended to other Neanderthal skeletons, the vertebrae and pelvic bones also matched this model. Once thought to be a hallmark of modern humans, this suggests that the curve of your lower back is not so unique after all.
Neanderthals
Water System?
Mars
An ancient system of lakes has been identified deep underneath the surface of Mars, in a discovery scientists say hints at the past presence of life.
While the red planet is mostly dry and desolate today, a growing body of evidence shows it used to be covered in large bodies of water above and below ground.
Now, using information gathered by the European Space Agency's Mars Express mission, scientists have located an underground water complex previously only predicted by computer models.
"Findings like this are hugely important; they help us to identify the regions of Mars that are the most promising for finding signs of past life," says Mars Express project scientist Dmitri Titov.
Only last year, a team identified a vast lake of liquid water hidden underneath the planet's southern pole, but for the most part, Mars' wet days are over.
Mars
Radioactive
Cremation
When workers cremated a 69-year-old cancer patient in America, they were unaware of one, crucial fact - his body was radioactive.
The man died in one hospital - but had been treated the previous day with radioactive compound to target his tumour.
When his remains were cremated, there was still a potentially dangerous dose of the radioactive isotope lutetium Lu 177 dotatate in his body.
A month after the cremation, workers used a Geiger counter to test the cremation chamber, oven, vacuum filter and bone crusher - and found elevated levels of radiation.
Study co author Kevin Nelson said, 'This wasn't like the second-coming of Chernobyl or Fukushima, but it was higher than you would anticipate.'
Cremation
Endangered Fruit Bats
Mauritius
Scientists are suing the Mauritian government for "driving endangered fruit bats towards extinction", after mass culls killed at least half their population.
More than 50,000 of the animals are thought to have been killed in three culls since 2015, in an attempt to protect fruit in orchards.
The bats - also known as flying foxes - are resorting to eating in orchards to survive because only 5 per cent of Mauritius's native forests remain, animal experts warned.
Fruit bats are vital for biodiversity as they pollinate flowers and scatter seeds, enabling trees and plants to grow and spread, according to conservationists.
But populations of the flying foxes have fallen by more than 50 per cent in four years, said Vincent Florens, an ecologist at the University of Mauritius. Some believe fewer than 30,000 now remain.
Mauritius
Ancient Giant Sloth
Belize
Nearly 27,000 years ago, a giant ground sloth traveled across a barren, arid landscape in what is now Belize, munching on grassy vegetation and searching for water.
A nearby sinkhole may have promised relief, but the creature probably fell in and never came out.
In 2014, divers discovered the remains of that giant sloth buried in a clay shelf in a sinkhole 70 feet underwater. The researchers were searching for Mayan artifacts that may have been thrown into the pools, but instead uncovered part of the sloth's femur, a piece of arm bone, and a large tooth.
That tooth - an impressive 4 inches long and 1 inch wide - was of particular interest to researchers, since it revealed new details about what these ancient creatures ate, a new study reports. The new analysis of the tooth found that these sloths' diets varied from season to season, which helped them survive their harsh environment.
Ancient ground sloths, officially called Eremotherium laurillardi, were much larger than today's sloths - they could be up to 20 feet long from tip to tail, stand 13 feet tall, and weigh some 14,400 pounds.
Belize
Weedend Box Office
'How to Train Your Dragon'
"How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World" topped the North American box office for a second week, but close on its tail was Tyler Perry's final installment of the "Madea" franchise. Driven by a largely female audience, "A Madea Family Funeral" had a better-than-expected debut.
The third installment in the "How To Train Your Dragon" series grossed an estimated $30 million this weekend according to Universal Pictures on Sunday, bringing its domestic total just shy of $100 million. Worldwide, the DreamWorks Animation film has made over $375 million. In China alone it opened in first place with $33.4 million.
"A Madea Family Funeral" took second place at the domestic box office with an estimated $27 million, a third best for the 15-year-old franchise. The "Madea" films have never been all that popular with critics - this one splattered out with a 24 percent on Rotten Tomatoes - but audiences have never seemed to care. This time around the audience, which was 67 percent female and 78 percent over the age of 25, gave the film a solid A- CinemaScore.
Further down the charts, the Neil Jordan stalker-thriller "Greta," starring Isabelle Huppert and Chloe Grace Moretz, opened in eighth place to a mediocre $4.6 million.
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 are also included. Final domestic figures will be released Tuesday.
1."How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World," $30 million ($52 million international).
2.Tyler Perry's "A Madea Family Funeral," $27 million ($58,000 international).
3."Alita: Battle Angel," $7 million ($40.4 million international).
4."The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part," $6.6 million ($6.1 million international).
5."Green Book," $4.7 million ($31.9 million international).
6."Fighting With My Family," $4.7 million ($2.3 million international).
7."Isn't It Romantic," $4.6 million.
8."Greta," $4.6 million ($400,000 international).
9."What Men Want," $2.7 million ($1.1 million international).
10."Happy Death Day 2U," $2.5 million ($6.2 million international).
'How to Train Your Dragon'
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