Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Marina Hyde: Tiger Woods' Masters win was no tale of redemption - it was revenge (The Guardian)
His stunning return to golf's major highs thrills as much for him sticking it to the old guard as it did for pure sporting spectacle.
Lucy Mangan: What happened when our TV critic watched 67 hours of Game of Thrones? (The Guardian)
Ned Stark who? White Walkers? And what's a Wall anyway? As the final series begins, one newcomer gets up to speed.
Lucy Mangan: Game of Thrones series eight review - a nostalgia-fest for long-suffering fans (The Guardian)
The premiere was almost enough to warm your heart - if winter hadn't come with such a vengeance that the chill seemed to reach through the screen.
Sam Adams: The One Death Game of Thrones Can't Face (Slate)
There's no way humans should win this battle.
Donna Ferguson: Why Harry Potter and Paddington Bear are essential reading … for grown-ups (The Guardian)
Oxford don champions children's books as figures show that sales to adults are soaring.
Lucy Mangan has a message for those smug people who always wake up early (Stylist)
Eight hours is eight hours is eight hours. Employers need to accept that the 11 to 7 (or 12 to 8, or 1 to - you get the picture) is as good as the 9 to 5, and everyone else needs to accept that I will never be joining them for breakfast in the park at 7am. But if you ever need someone to have a drink with at midnight - great, I'm there!
Hadley Freeman: I love stories of badly-behaved houseguests - and Julian Assange has raised the bar (The Guardian)
Surely no one is feeling any emotion as intensely as the happiness currently experienced by the staff, and especially the cleaners, at the Ecuador embassy
Alison Flood: Gene Wolfe, 'magnificent' giant of science fiction, dies aged 87 (The Guardian)
Hailed by authors from George RR Martin to Neil Gaiman, Wolfe was most known for his magnum opus The Book of the New Sun.
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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
• Bill Nack was first sports editor and then editor of The Daily Illini. He loved horses and while he was sports editor and Roger Ebert was editor, he ran stories on all of the major horse races. Mr. Ebert remembers, "We had only one photo of a horse. We used it for every winner. If it was a filly, we flipped it. Of this as his editor I approved." Mr. Nack served in Vietnam and then started writing for Newsday. At a Newsdayholiday party, he stood on a desk and recited from memory the winners of the Kentucky Derby - every winner, complete with names and dates. Dave Laventhiol, Newsday editor, asked him why he knew that information. Mr. Nack replied, "It's the Damon Runyan in me." Mr. Laventhiol then offered Mr. Nack his dream job: "Would you like to cover the races for Newsday?" In five minutes, he had the job, but he did have to write a note asking for the job so that Mr. Laventhiol could post it on the bulletin board for the curious who would wonder why Mr. Nack was making a radical change in what he wrote about for Newsday. In the note, Mr. Nack wrote, "After covering politicians for four years, I would like the chance to cover the whole horse."
• Actor and musician Tim Robbins, who won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar in 2003 for Mystic River, is a sports fan. On his 11th birthday, he and his grandmother sat in the last row of Shea Stadium as the New York Mets won the World Series. The fans went onto the field and grabbed handfuls of grass as souvenirs. Tim remembers, "I really wanted to join this madness on the subway, but I could see the terror in my grandmother's eyes. On the way home a guy gave me some of his big wad of grass. I kept it for years." He also plays hockey, and he says, "Ice hockey is a really cerebral game. It can be a beautiful ballet. But I have to keep my head up when I am playing as there's always that *ssh*le who recognizes you and wants to tell their friends how they laid Tim Robbins out on the ice."
• Tom Danehy, columnist for Tucson Weekly in Tucson, Arizona, is also a coach in many sports. For example, he coaches middle school six-man flag football during the late summer and early fall. In 2011, his star player was Hope, a left-handed Asian girl. About Hope, Mr. Danehy says, "In probably half the games this season, she was clearly the best athlete on the field for either team." Having a girl on the team doesn't bother the other players, but some adults are puzzled and one asked Mr. Danehy, "So, what are you trying to prove? Is this some kind of social experiment?" He replied, "Dude, your kid's team just got whupped, and that 'social experiment' accounted for four touchdowns." (Hope returned an interception for a touchdown, passed for a touchdown, and ran for two touchdowns.)
• Jim Thorpe attended Carlisle Indian School, where he saw some track and field athletes unsuccessfully trying to jump a high bar set at the height of five feet, nine inches. He asked for a chance to try, and the other athletes laughed at the overalls and heavy shoes that Mr. Thorpe was wearing. Nevertheless, they let Mr. Thorpe attempt to jump the high bar-and he succeeded. Coach Glenn Scobey "Pop" Warner heard about the jump, and he informed Mr. Thorpe that he had just broken the school record for the high jump. He also informed Mr. Thorpe that he had become a member of the Carlisle track and field team. Carlisle track star Albert Exendine helped train Mr. Thorpe, and Mr. Thorpe broke all of Albert's track records at Carlisle.
• In October 2009, the primary sponsor of U.S. Speedskating - the Dutch bank DSB - went bankrupt. The 2010 Winter Games were coming up, and the company could not donate the $300,000 it had pledged. Luckily on 2 November 2009, comedian Stephen Colbert announced that his show was becoming the team's primary sponsor. He asked viewers to make small donations, and the U.S. Speedskating team received over $300,000 donated by approximately 9,000 people. It was a good investment - the team won 10 medals at the Olympic Games. Why did Mr. Colbert do this good deed? He explained, "Believe me, I spent 20 years racking up huge debts pursuing comedy."
• Bill Cosby was an athlete before he became a stand-up comedian and movie and TV star. He once became the high jump champion of the Middle Atlantic Conference by psyching out his opponents. He had not been jumping well, managing to clear only about six feet. However, at the meet a bump was on the approach to the high jump, and a few athletes had complained about it. Soon, Bill's voice was heard coming loudly from a tent: "There's really a terrible bump out there. There's no way anybody is going to jump over five-ten today." Mr. Cosby won the championship with a jump of only six feet, which was actually a short height in that event.
• Babe Zaharias was a female professional athlete when few female professional athletes existed. She won Olympic gold medals in track and field and helped start the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA), but she played (and often excelled in) many other sports. A reporter once asked her if there was anything she did not play. She replied, "Yeah. Dolls." Lots of people thought that playing sports was a masculine trait, and a woman once asked her, "Where are your whiskers?" Babe replied, "I'm sitting on them, sister, just like you."
• The soccer team of Magdeburg, Germany, had failed to score a single goal in five matches, so in March 2012 their fans decided to help. Figuring that perhaps the team players did not know where their goal was located, the fans held up arrows pointing to the goal during a match against a Berlin team. That way, their players would know where to kick the soccer ball. Other fans held up a banner that read, "We'll show you where the goal is!" Magdeburg did score a goal, but lost the match, 2-1.
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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
The ice cream trucks were out in full force.
Flyers Remove Statue
Kate Smith
The Philadelphia Flyers have officially removed a statue of Kate Smith from outside the Wells Fargo Center, the team announced Sunday. Additionally, the Flyers will no longer play Smith's rendition of "God Bless America" at games.
"The Flyers have enjoyed a long and popular relationship with 'God Bless America,' as performed by the late Kate Smith, a woman who was awarded the Presidential Medal of Honor for her patriotic contributions to our nation," the Flyers said in a statement, per ESPN. "But in recent days, we learned that several of the songs Kate Smith performed in the 1930s include lyrics and sentiments that are incompatible with the values of our organization, and evoke painful and unacceptable themes."
Philadelphia's decision comes just days after it was reported that the New York Yankees would no longer play Smith's version of "God Bless America" upon learning of her history with racist song lyrics.
According to the New York Daily News, Smith, who rose to fame during World War II, previously recorded songs such as "Pickaninny Heaven"-which was "directed at 'colored children' who should fantasize about an amazing place with 'great big watermelons"-and "That's Why Darkies Were Born."
Kate Smith
Humboldt State University
KHSU-FM
Dramatic funding cuts, staff firings and the sudden clear-out last week of KHSU-FM, Humboldt State University's popular public radio station, have outraged North Coast listeners and lawmakers who are demanding to know what has happened to a community institution.
The removal of staff was done under the watch of university police.
"KHSU is the heart of this community and that heart was ripped out," state Sen. Mike McGuire told The Sacramento Bee on Friday.
The North Coast Democrat joined state Assemblyman Jim Wood along with former state Sen. Wes Chesbro and former Assemblywoman Patty Berg in a letter to California State University Chancellor Timothy White and obtained by The Bee that blasted the university's April 11 decision as reckless, secretive and short-sighted.
As first reported Thursday in the Eureka Times-Standard, Humboldt State officials, in a sweeping series of moves, fired five staffers, ended direct funding from the university to KHSU-FM, eliminated the station's general manager and chief engineer positions, shelved programs run by station volunteers and installed new requirements that funding for an interim station director come from outside sources.
KHSU-FM
Drone Discovers Plant
Hawai'i
Hey there, Hibiscadelphus woodii. How you been?
The plant, which is also known as "Wood's hau kuahiwi" and was thought to be extinct, is apparently still around and possibly even flourishing in its native Hawaii. Researchers for the National Tropical Botanical Garden on the island of Kauai made the discovery with a little help from a drone.
Three of the plants were spotted in footage captured by a drone that was sent out to explore Kalalau Valley. The remote region of Kauai is known for its biodiversity, thanks to cliffs that make the region inaccessible to the humans and goats that pose a threat to local plant life.
You can see the NTBG's drone footage, and see the plant itself (clearly marked) at roughly the halfway point.
The H. woodii plant - a relative of hibiscus - was discovered in 1991 by NTBG botanists and classified as a new species in 1995. But it hasn't been seen since 2009, leading scientists to classify it as extinct.
Hawai'i
Coded Diary Became HBO Series
'Gentleman Jack'
In 1832, Anne Lister knew that if the wrong pair of eyes landed on her long-kept diary, she would be ostracized - it was a detailed log of everything from the weather to her sexual encounters with women, at a time when same-sex relationships were unacceptable to most of society.
So she wrote parts of the diary in a secret code.
Cut to the 1990s, when a fellow resident of Halifax, England discovered the 27-volume, 5-million-word diary of the woman the BBC and others have described as Britain's "first modern lesbian." Screenwriter Sally Wainwright decided to turn Lister's story into a TV show - "Gentleman Jack" will premiere on Monday on HBO. It gets its title from the nickname townspeople were said to have given Lister due to her penchant for dressing all in black and refusal to conform to the traditional women's clothing of the time.
Drawing on Lister's own words sets "Gentleman Jack" apart from historical reenactments and period pieces that rely on secondhand sources.
Though Wainwright can read Lister's code, she hired a historical advisor to expedite the process of deciphering never-before-read sections as they were filming. Actress Suranne Jones ("Doctor Foster," "Scott & Bailey"), who plays Lister, recalled moments when filming would be interrupted by breaking news from the 1800s.
'Gentleman Jack'
Population Growth
Dallas
New population estimates show that the Dallas-Fort Worth area led American cities in new residents from 2017 to 2018.
U.S. Census Bureau numbers show that the two cities, along with Arlington in between, grew by nearly 131,700 residents and have gained more than a million residents since 2010.
Houston and its neighboring cities of The Woodlands and Sugar Land also gained more than 1 million people over the last decade.
The Dallas and Houston areas are the fourth and fifth most populous metropolitan areas, respectively, in the U.S., behind New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.
Two cities in Texas oil country, Midland and Odessa, were among the country's fastest growing for the 12-month period ending in July 2018. Their populations swelled by 4.3% and 3.2%, respectively.
Dallas
African Swine Fever
China
African swine fever, which is deadly to pigs but not harmful to humans, has now spread to all Chinese mainland provinces since the first case was confirmed in August, posing a serious threat to the hog industry and raising concerns about consumer inflation.
The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs on Sunday said 146 pigs had died from the highly contagious virus at six farms on the southernmost province of Hainan. The first confirmed cases on the tropical island were reported on Friday, when officials said 77 pigs had died from the disease at four farms.
The cases in Hainan mean the virus has spread to all 31 mainland provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions in less than nine months since it was first confirmed at a pig farm not far from China's border with Russia.
China raises about half the world's pigs, and the spread of African swine fever is causing huge disruption to the supply of pork in the country. Financial services firm Rabobank estimated that up to 200 million pigs - nearly half the number in China - could be culled or die from the disease during the epidemic, saying there was not enough pork in "the whole world combined" to fill the potential supply shortfall.
With a reduced pork supply at home, China has had to buy more from overseas. In the first two months of the year, the country's pork imports increased 10 per cent to 207,000 tonnes, the agriculture ministry said.
China
'Catastrophic Population Decline'
Amphibians
Amphibians across the world are experiencing "catastrophic population declines" from a widening range of interacting pathogens, scientists say.
Fungal disease chytridiomycosis is thought to have caused the extinction of 90 amphibian species around the world and the marked decline of at least 491 others over the last 20 years.
According to Dr Benjamin Scheele, the lead author of a study into chytridiomycosis, it is "the greatest recorded loss of biodiversity attributable to a disease".
But now amphibians are also under attack from another pathogen known as the ranavirus, which exists in at least four varieties.
In addition scientists have found that there are at least two species of chytridiomycosis, and within these, many different genetic types.
Amphibians
Has Natural Arsenic
"Natural" Bottled Water
Several brands of bottled water contain concerning levels of arsenic contamination, according to an investigation by Consumer Reports.
The worst offenders in the report were Starkey, a brand owned by Whole Foods and marketed as water in its "natural state," and Peñafiel, owned by Keurig Dr Pepper and imported from Mexico.
Samples of Peñafiel tested by CR had arsenic levels that averaged 18.1 parts per billion, well above the federal allowable limit of 10ppb set by the Food and Drug Administration. Testing of Whole Foods' Starkey Water revealed levels at or just a smidge below federal limits, with results ranging from 9.48 ppb to 10.1 ppb.
Arsenic is a trace element in rock and sediment and can contaminate groundwater naturally from geological sources or from human activities, such as mining and run-off from agricultural and industrial sources. Long-term exposure to high-levels of arsenic are associated with skin disorders and increased risks of certain cancers, diabetes, and high blood pressure, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Some studies have also linked arsenic to impaired intellectual development following exposure early in life.
"Natural" Bottled Water
Weekend Box Office
'The Curse of La Llorona'
"The Curse of La Llorona" brought good fortune at the box office. The Warner Bros. horror film based on a Mexican legend about a woman who murdered her children and wanders the world looking for them brought in $26.5 million according to studio estimates Sunday, putting it in the top spot on its opening weekend - the last before "Avengers: Endgame" arrives to dominate.
"The Curse of La Llorona" ended the two-week reign of "Shazam!" in the top spot. The DC Comics superhero comedy was second with $17.3 million, continuing its strong run with a three-week domestic total of $121.3 million and giving Warner Bros. a 1-2 finish.
The inspirational "Breakthrough," the first release from 20th Century Fox since Disney acquired the studio, was third with $11.1 million, a respectable opening for the modestly budgeted faith-based film.
The comedy "Little" was fifth in its second week for Universal. "Dumbo" finally crossed the $100 million threshold as it faded to sixth in its fourth week of a disappointing performance for a live-action Disney release.
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.
1. "The Curse of La Llorona," $26.5 million ($30 million international).
2. "Shazam!" $17.3 million. ($22 million international).
3. "Breakthrough," $11.1 million.
4. "Captain Marvel," $9.1 million ($6.5 million international).
5. "Little," $8.5 million.
6. "Dumbo," $6.8 million. ($13.7 million international).
7. "Pet Sematary," $4.9 million ($5.5 million international).
8. "Missing Link," $4.4 million
9. "Us," $4.3 million
10. "Hellboy," $3.9 million.
'The Curse of La Llorona'
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