Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Lucy Mangan: The Kennedy Who Changed the World review - if only she'd been president (The Guardian)
If we can't have King Arthur back to sort us out, I will take Eunice, and gladly. Someone who cayahs ["cares" with a Boston accent].
Lucy Mangan on why we have to accept that musical geniuses can be abusers (Stylist)
The new documentary about Michael Jackson challenges the toxic myth that talented people can't do terrible things - and that's a force for good, says Stylist columnist Lucy Mangan.
Hadley Freeman: My friend was smart, sweet, off-kilter. Now we'll never get the chance to make up (The Guardian)
He was the kind of mate who came for dinner and stayed for a week. His death made me sad - and angry with myself.
Suzanne Moore: Now self-help books are aimed at men - but they have rarely actually helped anyone (The Guardian)
It has to be said, though, I have an immense soft spot for a certain kind of inspirational poster: ones of beautiful landscapes with Werner Herzog quotes over the top. My favourite shows some cows in an abundant green field and reads: "I believe the common denominator of the universe is not harmony but chaos, hostility and murder."
Suzanne Moore: The guff spoken about Jess Phillips shows how uneasy people still are about class (The Guardian)
The MP was criticised after a recent interview and photoshoot. This discussion about class is beyond tedious - and vastly hypocritical.
Clara Mae: "White hero, sidekick of color: why Marvel needs to break the cycle" (The Guardian)
In Captain Marvel, Brie Larson's hero is the latest in a long line of white MCU superheroes backed up by a supportive, underdeveloped character of color.
Dr. Michael Gregor: #1 Anticancer Vegetable (NutritionFacts.org)
There are two superfood classes of vegetables most adept at blocking human cancer cell growth in a petri dish. [Eat garlic, onions, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, spinach, etc.]
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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
• During a theatrical presentation of Bulldog Drummond, the villain was supposed to gain possession of a gun, then fire it at Bulldog - but no shot was supposed to fire. Bulldog was supposed to then say, "My good man, I would scarcely have let you amuse yourself with that toy had I not known it was unloaded." However, one night the villain grabbed the wrong gun, which was loaded with blanks, then shot twice at Bulldog. Real bullets were not used, of course, but the gun sprayed powder onto Bulldog's chest. The actor playing Bulldog couldn't say his line about the gun's being unloaded, and since Bulldog was the hero of the play, he couldn't "die," so he looked at the villain and said, "My good man, you're a damned bad shot."
• In Amsterdam, Anne-Marie Holmes danced the title role of Giselle. However, the National Ballet of Holland used a different grave than the one she was used to. The cover to its grave opened in the middle instead of to the side. Ms. Holmes wanted to be sure that her skirt would not get caught in the grave cover so she leaned forward; she was successful in that the grave cover did not close on her skirt - instead, it closed on her nose. Fortunately, the stagehands heard her moan, so they lifted the cover enough for her to get her nose free. Otherwise, the otherworldly spirit that was Giselle would have had an embarrassing time in front of the audience.
• When Peter Martins first began performing with the New York City Ballet, he had to learn several ballets very quickly. Often, he learned a ballet during a day and then had to perform it later that night. On one occasion, he was dancing with Suzanne Farrell. He had five entrances and exits. The first four went well, but he forgot about the fifth entrance. For support, Ms. Farrell stretched out her hand, which Mr. Martins was supposed to take, but Mr. Martins was offstage, so Ms. Farrell fell on her face. To the audience, it looked as if Ms. Farrell had committed the fault. According to Mr. Martins, "She was furious with me about that for a whole week."
• Anton Dolin and Alicia Markova toured the world, bringing ballet to everybody. Of course, mishaps occurred during touring. In Birmingham, Alabama, Ms. Markova fell flat on her back during Act II of Giselle, lying with her legs and her lilies pointing straight up, while she giggled at the indignity of her position. In Dallas, Texas, the stage floor was so slippery that at one point Mr. Dolan told the audience, "Ladies and gentlemen, we are doing our best and trying to stand up, but neither Miss Markova nor I nor our group are billed as The Ice Capades!"
• Margaret Rawlins appeared in The White Devil, in which a gang of thugs killed her character near the end of the play. During one performance, the actors playing the thugs got carried away and Ms. Rawlins' gown was ripped to the waist, leaving her topless. (Since this happened in 1947, the audience was in shock.) Trouper that she was, Ms. Rawlins remained motionless until the curtain came down, then she gathered the remnants of her clothing and glared at the actors who were staring at her from the wings.
• Giuseppe di Stefano sang the part of Alfredo in Giuseppe Verdi's opera La Traviata. In the second act, he was supposed to throw some stage money into the face of the character Violetta - a deadly insult. Unfortunately, once on stage he discovered that his dresser had forgotten to put the stage money into a pocket - any pocket - of his costume. Forced to improvise, he slapped Violetta. The woman playing Violetta never forgave him.
• One of the great dance teams of all time is Anna Pavlova and Mikhail Mordkin, but mishaps happen even to great dance teams. While touring, they performed in Mordkin's Legend of Azyiade, based on The Arabian Nights. During a performance, Ms. Pavlova with her usual vigor hurled herself into Mr. Mordkin's arms, and the sofa he was sitting on collapsed.
• While playing Juliet in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Constance Benson once stood on a rather shakily constructed balcony. She was warned not to move around too much, but in the emotion of acting, she forgot her instructions. The balcony collapsed, and she tumbled right into Romeo's arms.
• French soprano Emma Calvé once had the misfortune of having her knickers fall down while she was singing in the presence of Queen Victoria of Great Britain. Ms. Calvé remained calm and kicked the knickers into the wings as she continued to sing, but Queen Victoria was shocked and did not applaud at the end of the performance.
• Frank Benson once played Hamlet so energetically that when he plunged his sword through a curtain he sliced through the eyelid of the actress playing the Queen. She asked him in a whisper if her eye was put out, and he whispered back that it was not and to please keep the injury hidden from the audience.
• While singing in Verdi's La Forza del Destino, tenor Enrico Caruso was supposed to throw a gun on the floor, at which time a stagehand would fire a blank offstage. Mr. Caruso did throw the gun on the floor, but there was no gunshot - so Mr. Caruso said loudly, "BANG."
• At the 1986 Federal Express St. Jude Classic, Gary McCord hit five shots in a row into a pond. Finally, he looked at his club. He was using a 4-iron instead of the 3-iron he thought he was using.
• Ballet dancer Anna Pavlova loved to swim, although she was not very good at it. She liked to dive into the water and once knocked herself out with a dive.
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© Copyright Bruce D. Bruce; All Rights Reserved
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Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
JD is on vacation.
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny with a nice breeze.
'Terrible' First Six Months
Stephen Colbert
On Tuesday, Jay Leno said on the "Today" show that he doesn't miss being a late night host because "everyone has to know your politics."
At his Paleyfest deep dive into being a late night host on Saturday, which was moderated by Pete Holmes, Stephen Colbert said he agrees with Leno that today's late night hosts have to wear their political colors on their sleeves, but revealed that he doesn't have a problem with it.
"It was a different time when (Leno) was hosting. Now there's one subject, so people can see your politics more, but I'm fine with that," Colbert said. "I don't think there's anything wrong with it, I don't think there's anything wrong with saying what this person is doing to families and the nation is horrible."
When asked what he feels the point of "The Late Show" is, Colbert said his main goal is to make people across the country "feel like they're not alone." However, he also later discussed the much-documented issues he had in finding the identity and tone for his talk show.
Colbert's conversation with Holmes also included a generous dose of President Trump-bashing, with the host calling him "a delicious idiot," and once again reiterating the evidence that the President stole some of his lines from "The Colbert Report."
Stephen Colbert
Australia
'EggBoy'
Australian police said they were investigating after a teenager smashed an egg on a controversial right-wing lawmaker who had blamed New Zealand's mass mosque shootings on the country's immigration program.
The footage, shared widely on social media, showed Senator Fraser Anning being approached from behind at a political event on Saturday, before having an egg cracked on the back of his head.
The footage showed Anning appearing to try to hit the person, before that person was dragged to the ground.
Anning has received widespread condemnation following comments he made that saying cause of New Zealand's worst peace time shooting was letting "Muslim fanatics" migrate to the country.
A GoFundMe campaign had raised more than A$19,000 ($13,500) for the teenager to cover the cost of legal fees and so he could "buy more eggs" by Sunday and the hashtag #EggBoy was trending on Twitter.
'EggBoy'
More Likely
Unethical
Federal attorneys have arrested 50 people in a college admission scam that allowed wealthy parents to buy their kids' admission to elite universities. Prosecutors found that parents together paid up to US$6.5 million to get their kids into college. The list includes celebrity parents such as actresses Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin.
Some might ask why did these parents fail to consider the moral implications of their actions?
Research shows that people are good at rationalizing unethical actions that serve their self-interest. The success, or failure, of one's children often has implications for how parents view themselves and are viewed by others. They are more likely to bask in the reflected glory of their children. They seem to gain esteem based on their connection to successful children. This means parents can be motivated by self-interest to ensure their children's achievement.
In the case of cheating for their children, parents can justify the behavior through comparisons that help them morally disengage with an action. For example, they could say that other parents' do a lot worse things, or minimize the consequences of their actions through words such as, "My behavior did not cause much harm."
Viewing the unethical outcomes as serving others, including one's children, could help parents create a psychological distance to rationalize misconduct. Several studies demonstrate that people are more likely to be unethical when their actions also help someone else. For example, it is easier for employees to accept a bribe when they plan to share the proceeds with coworkers.
Unethical
Sunday
Tweet Storm
President Trump (R-Embarrassingly Inadequate), who attended church on Sunday, held his own sermon on Twitter in defense of controversial Fox News hosts Jeanine Pirro and Tucker Carlson.
"Bring back @JudgeJeanine Pirro," he demanded of Fox News. Pirro, who's hosted "Justice With Judge Jeanine" since 2011. The show, which airs Saturday evenings at 9 p.m., was replaced March 16 by a rerun of the documentary show "Scandalous" a week after Pirro made contentious on-air comments about Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., one of the first Muslim woman elected to Congress.
"Think about it," Pirro began on her show last week, "Omar wears a hijab, which according to the Quran, 33:59, tells women to cover so they won't get molested. Is her adherence to this Islamic doctrine indicative of her adherence to Sharia law, which in itself is antithetical to the United States Constitution?"
Pirro lost advertisers and in a rare rebuke, was publicly condemned by her cable news network, although she has not been formally suspended.
But Trump urged Fox News to reinstate Pirro, whom he's personally known for years. "Fox must stay strong and fight back with vigor. Stop working soooo hard on being politically correct, which will only bring you down," Trump wrote Sunday.
Tweet Storm
Puzzling Number
Ferguson
Two young men were found dead inside torched cars. Three others died of apparent suicides. Another collapsed on a bus, his death ruled an overdose.
Six deaths, all involving men with connections to protests in Ferguson, Missouri, drew attention on social media and speculation in the activist community that something sinister was at play.
Police say there is no evidence the deaths have anything to do with the protests stemming from a white police officer's fatal shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown and that only two were homicides. But activists and observers remain puzzled, especially since people involved in the protests continue to face harassment and threats.
Ferguson
Erase a Memory
Neuroscientists
When bad things happen, we don't want to remember. We try to block, resist, ignore - but we should perhaps be doing the opposite, researchers say.
A new study led by scientists in Texas suggests the act of intentionally forgetting is linked to increased cerebral engagement with the unwanted information in question. In other words, to forget something, you actually need to focus on it.
"A moderate level of brain activity is critical to this forgetting mechanism," explains psychologist Tracy Wang from the University of Texas at Austin.
"Too strong, and it will strengthen the memory; too weak, and you won't modify it."
Much prior research on intentional forgetting has focussed on brain activity in the prefrontal cortex, and the brain's memory centre, the hippocampus.
Neuroscientists
4500 Years Ago
Spain
The genetic legacy of men who lived on the Iberian Peninsula 4500 years ago has largely diminished-all of their Y chromosomes, which are passed from men to men, were replaced as new farming cultures swept into the region and drove them out of the gene pool. That's one of the striking conclusions of the largest analysis of ancient DNA from the Iberian Peninsula. The findings suggest that far from being an isolated cul-de-sac of Europe, Iberia experienced massive changes in ancestry, as waves of hunter-gatherers, farmers, Romans, and others mixed with the local population over the course of thousands of years.
The work-a deep dive into the genomes of about 300 people who lived in Iberia from 13,000 to 500 years ago-is "extraordinary in getting so much genetic data from so many individuals in time and space," says evolutionary biologist Jaume Bertranpetit Busquets of Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, Spain. It "represents the most detailed and long-term genetic documentation of a single region, Iberia, from prehistory into early history," adds archaeologist Kristian Kristiansen of the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. Neither was involved in the new research.
Iberia was first settled by modern humans some 44,000 years ago. But little is known about how those pioneers contributed to later populations-the oldest DNA comes from hunter-gatherers who date back to 19,000 years in northern Spain. These early hunter-gatherers came in two separate groups that settled in northern and southern Spain and had close ties to hunter-gatherers in Poland and Italy, respectively, according to ancient DNA from 11 hunter-gatherers and early farmers who lived in Iberia from 13,000 to 6000 years ago. Later, the DNA shows, they slowly mixed with incoming farmers from Anatolia, which is in present-day Turkey, researchers led by population geneticist Wolfgang Haak at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Jena, Germany, report today in Current Biology.
Younger DNA, from two skeletons dating from between 3600 and 4500 years ago, reveals another element in the Iberian mixture. One was North African and the other had a grandparent with North African ancestry, according to a study today in Science by Iñigo Olalde, a postdoc in the lab of population geneticist David Reich at Harvard Medical School in Boston, and their colleagues.
Then, central Europeans who were descendants of herders from the grasslands of Eastern Europe and Russia, appeared in Iberia, starting in the early Bronze Age 4500 years ago. They probably introduced an early Indo-European language (the major family of more than 400 languages spoken in European and Asia today), according to Olalde. At first, the European farmers lived alongside the farmers already in Spain, based on ancient DNA from men buried at roughly the same time in the same places. But within a few hundred years, nearly all the Y chromosomes from Iberian farmers were gone-and replaced by the central Europeans farmers' DNA.
Spain
May Be Less Inactive Than You Think
Inactive Ingredients
The medicines you take contain a soup of active and inactive ingredients.
Active ingredients are the ones that provide a therapeutic benefit, while inactive ingredients are just that - inactive - meaning they don't react in the body and are instead there to enhance the properties of the medication itself, such as its taste, appearance and ability to be absorbed by the body.
But it turns out that inactive ingredients may not be as, well, inactive as we think: A new study finds that, in some patients, inactive ingredients can trigger allergic reactions or other symptoms of food intolerance.
The study was published today (March 13) in the journal Science Translational Medicine. (Of note, three of the study authors hold a patent on a system that examines the burden of inactive ingredients in pills.)
The researchers began looking into inactive ingredients after senior study author Dr. Giovanni Traverso, an assistant professor in MIT's Department of Mechanical Engineering and a gastroenterologist at Brigham and Women's Hospital, treated a patient with celiac disease who had a reaction to a medication that contained inactive ingredients derived from wheat products.
Inactive Ingredients
Weekend Box Office
'Captain Marvel'
"Captain Marvel" has continued to dominate the global box office in its second weekend in theaters, leaving newcomers in the dust.
Walt Disney Studios estimated Sunday that the intergalactic superhero fell only 55 percent from its record-breaking opening. This weekend, "Captain Marvel" earned an additional $69.3 million from North American theaters and $119.7 million internationally, bringing its global grosses to $760 million.
In a very distant second, Paramount's animated family film "Wonder Park" struggled with $16 million against a reported $100 million budget. Paul Dergarabedian, a senior media analyst for Comscore, said that it's hard to compete with "Captain Marvel," which is playing to all ages and audiences. But the PG-rated pic about a girl who dreams up an amusement park did not score well with critics either - it's currently sitting at a 30 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.
But it wasn't all bad news for the films in "Captain Marvel's" shadow. The Cole Sprouse and Haley Lu Richardson film "Five Feet Apart" opened in third place with $13.2 million in ticket sales, which is nearly double its production budget. The film from Lionsgate and CBS Films is centered on two teens with cystic fibrosis.
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 Monday.
1."Captain Marvel," $69.3 million ($119.7 million international).
2."Wonder Park," $16 million ($4.3 million international).
3."Five Feet Apart," $13.2 million ($189,000 international).
4."How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World," $9.3 million ($9.4 million international).
5.Tyler Perry's "A Madea Family Funeral," $8.1 million ($65,600 international).
6."No Manches Frida 2," $3.9 million.
7."Captive State," $3.2 million ($64,400 international).
8."The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part," $2.1 million ($2.1 million international).
9."Alita: Battle Angel," $1.9 million ($4 million international).
10."Green Book," $1.3 million ($17.1 million international).
'Captain Marvel'
In Memory
Richard Erdman
Richard Erdman, best known to TV audiences for his recurring role on Community, died on Saturday at the age of 93.
Erdman played octogenarian Greendale student Leonard, who was first introduced in the fifth episode of Season 1, "Advanced Criminal Law." He'd go on to appear in 53 episodes throughout all six seasons of the NBC-turned-Yahoo sitcom, which ran from 2009-2015.
It was revealed in the Season 6 premiere that Leonard had attended Greendale since 1975. Erdman's scenes typically involved the elderly student cracking wise at the expense of Jeff and the study group, before one of them fired back and said, "Shut up, Leonard," before revealing something utterly ridiculous about him.
Erdman worked steadily as a character actor for over 70 years. His credits included episodes of Alice, The Bionic Woman, Cheers, Felicity, Lou Grant, One Day at a Time and Beverly Hills, 90210. He also lent his voice to numerous cartoons, including The Smurfs, DuckTales and Batman: The Animated Series.
Richard Erdman
In Memory
Dick Dale
Dick Dale, whose pounding, blaringly loud power-chord instrumentals on songs like "Miserlou" and "Let's Go Trippin'" earned him the title King of the Surf Guitar, has died at age 83.
An avid surfer, Dale started building a devoted Los Angeles fan base in the late 1950s with repeated appearances at Newport Beach's old Rendezvous Ballroom. He played "Miserlou," ''The Wedge," ''Night Rider" and other compositions at wall-rattling volume on a custom-made Fender Stratocaster guitar.
"Miserlou," which would become his signature song, had been adapted from a Middle Eastern folk tune Dale heard as a child and later transformed into a thundering surf-rock instrumental.
His musical influence was profound and included guitar virtuosos Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan and movie director Quentin Tarantino, who selected Dale's "Miserlou," as the theme song of his 1994 film "Pulp Fiction." That helped pull the guitarist back into the pop-culture spotlight.
Born Richard Anthony Monsour in Boston on May 4, 1937, Dale moved to Los Angeles with his family in 1954, where he immediately fell in love with surfing and the electric guitar.
Self-taught on guitar, the left-handed Dale couldn't afford a custom-made model, so early on he played a standard right-hand guitar upside down and backward. That ended after a meeting with legendary guitar builder Leo Fender, who offered to make Dale his own left-handed model if he'd test a line of guitars and amplifiers Fender was developing.
Dale is survived by his wife, Lana, and a son, James, a drummer who sometimes toured with his father.
Dick Dale
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