Recommended Reading - Double Header
from Bruce
Andrew Tobias: What Do Democrats Stand For?
I would argue it can be boiled down to: FAIRNESS. It's not FAIR people have to work two jobs to scrape by . . . or that almost all the gains of the past 40 years have gone to people at the very top of the economic pyramid - even as their tax rates have been slashed. Or that CEO pay has grown 90 times faster than worker pay. Or that the minimum wage hasn't been raised with inflation. It's not FAIR health care and prescription drugs are wildly more expensive here than in any other industrialized nation. …
Paul Krugman: Notes on Excessive Wealth Disorder (NY Times Blog)
There's a fairly long list of things progressives have recently advocated that the usual suspects will try to convince everyone are crazy ideas nobody serious would support, e.g.: A 70 percent top tax rate, A wealth tax on very large fortunes, Universal child care, Deficit-financed spending on infrastructure. You don't have to support any or all of these policy ideas to recognize that they are anything but crazy. They are, in fact, backed by research from some of the world's leading economic experts.
Lucy Mangan is fed up of negative sneerers (Stylist)
"It's such a failure of empathy and imagination to sneer at small gestures. Our lives are made up of small gestures."
Grace Dent: Gwyneth Paltrow is right - living apart from my partner is like having my cake and eating it (The Guardian)
It's been this way for a couple of years. My other half is cherished - just from 13 miles away.
Suzanne Moore: "Nick Cave's Conversations tour: 'Rarely have I heard someone express grief so well'" (The Guardian)
The musician's latest show, in which he sings, takes questions and talks about losing his son, left our writer astonished.
Suzanne Moore: The Mark Field video is chillingly familiar to anyone who recognises male violence (The Guardian)
The sight of a minister manhandling a female protester should be shocking, but some felt able to look on - or even defend it.
Marina Hyde: Roll up, roll up for Gwyneth Paltrow's great London Goop summit (The Guardian)
Need your wallet cleaned out next week? In Goop Health will be only too happy to help.
Alison Flood: "No luxury: book containing tampons is runaway hit" (The Guardian)
Protest against Germany's 19% tax on sanitary products sells out first print run in one day.
Marc Dion: Stop Arguing About These Things (Creators Syndicate)
Stop arguing about just how bad slavery "really" was back in the day. It's a fun little argument if you're stupid, but the rest of us are tired of listening to you glorify life on the Ol' Plantation. Here's the deal. You can tell me slavery wasn't "that bad" if I can rape your wife and whip you until you bleed. C'mon! We'll get pizza after!
Mark Shields: The Circular Firing Squad (Creators Syndicate)
Biden refuses to demonize those who disagreed with him, because he knows that demonizing your opponent makes almost inevitable a response in kind and debases the public debate. To show decency to those with whom you disagree is not a weakness but rather a strength. It helps create a climate of trust and respect in which compromise and consensus can exist. On this one - and it's a big one - Joe Biden is right, and his critics are not just wrong, but their thinking is damaging to Democratic chances of winning the White House and uniting the country in 2020.
Mark Joseph Stern: Brett Kavanaugh's Latest Opinion Protects Black Defendants Against Racist Prosecutors (Slate)
It's an encouraging sign that Kavanaugh just ignored Thomas' dissent, as it is really too wacky, too hostile, and aggrieved to merit a response. Rather, with a majority of the court behind him, Kavanaugh made the casethat courts can identify discriminatory intent without a smoking gun of overt racism. Evans never used racial epithets in the courtroom or stated his desire for a white jury; his actions alone told the court everything it needed to know about his motivations. This Supreme Court may not always confrontunconstitutional prejudice with such clear-eyed pragmatism, but it's worth celebrating a decision that enforces constitutional limits on racist prosecutions.
Jordan Weissman: Elizabeth Warren Announced a Plan to Ban Private Prisons. Then Their Stocks Tanked. (Slate)
The political world has really started taking Warren's candidacy seriously. The fact that stock prices are now falling based on her rhetoric just shows that the Wall Street types she rails against are taking her seriously too.
Ted Rall: In Defense of Purity Tests (Creators Syndicate)
Progressives should not fall for the purity test smear. Voters have every right to demand certain standards of behavior and policy positions in exchange for their support. And so far, lefties have not asked for much: $15-an-hour minimum wage, Medicare for All, free college tuition, eschewing donations by corporations. Yet even these modest attempts to nudge the needle to the left go too far for the Third Way/Democratic Leadership Council/moderates clinging to control over the Democratic Party.
Froma Harrop: Many Democrats Happy to See Bernie Sanders on the Downward Slope (Creators Syndicate)
History will best remember Bernie Sanders for his role in helping elect Donald Trump. Happily for many (if not most) Democrats, Sanders is now fading big time. The earlier assumption was that the 2020 Democratic race would boil down to a brawl between Sanders and Joe Biden. Now we see Elizabeth Warren edging Sanders out for second place in a few polls. Biden, meanwhile, remains comfortably ahead of both of them.
Froma Harrop: Time's Up for Mandatory High Heels (Creators Syndicate)
Just think about it: a clothing item that permanently disfigures a body part, encouraging nerve growths that set off shooting pain. Fashionwise, it telegraphs sexual availability. And amazingly, some employers demand that their female workers wear this cause of physical agony to the office.
Lenore Skenazy: Free-Range Does Not Mean Feral (Creators Syndicate)
Free-Range is about giving kids independence and the tools they need to grow up a competent human and be able to thrive in ever-changing landscapes. We're against overprotection, not protection itself. For example, we believe parents must teach kids to cross the street safely before we let them do it on their own. It's about preparing the child for the path, not vice versa.
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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
• Harry S. Truman occasionally used profanity, something that Richard "Expletive Deleted" Nixon tried to make a campaign issue when he ran for President against John F. Kennedy. Mr. Kennedy responded, "I would not want to give the impression that I am taking former President Truman's use of language lightly. I have sent him the following wire: 'Dear Mr. President: I have noted with interest your suggestion as to where my opponent should go. While I understand and sympathize with your deep motivation, I think it important that our side try to refrain from raising the religious issue."
• President Abraham Lincoln once reviewed the first corps of the army. Being driven to the place of review by an ambulance composed of a wagon and a team of six mules, President Lincoln listened for a while as the driver cursed his six mules, then he asked the man, "Are you an Episcopalian?" Startled, the mule-driver replied, "No, Mr. President, I am a Methodist." President Lincoln then said, "I thought you must be an Episcopalian, because you swear just like Governor Seward, who is a church warden."
• Janette Porter was the daughter of a preacher. While in elementary school in the early part of the 20th century, a classmate whispered to her that she had just had an evil thought and asked what she should do. Janette whispered back, "Just think about flowers … and music … and JESUS." Joy at finding exactly the right word to say made her say that word much too loudly, and her teacher and most of her classmates were shocked to hear the preacher's daughter "curse." As punishment, she had to stand in the corner of the classroom for an hour.
• As a young man, H. Allen Smith attempted to join a Greek letter fraternity that was not connected with a university or college. Unfortunately, he didn't make the grade and was not accepted into the fraternity. To get revenge, he invented a new fraternity. The name consisted of three words denoting a vulgar expression, the first word of which was "Go." A Greek friend translated the expression into Greek and Mr. Smith wrote several articles for his newspaper about the fictitious fraternity.
• The Reverend Joseph Twichell taught Mark Twain how to ride a bicycle. When they were taking a bicycle ride one day - Mr. Twain somewhat unsteadily - they came to a large stone in the middle of the road. Mr. Twain headed right toward the rock and didn't know what to do to avoid hitting it and crashing. Reverend Twichell offered advice, but Mr. Twain replied, "Shut up, Joe. You ride ahead. I'm going to swear like hell in a minute."
• Even preachers sometimes make mistakes. Church of Christ preacher W.A. Bradfield was closing a sermon with a call to the altar and was doing his best to call the unrepentant to come to the altar and repent: "Oh, why don't you come? You daddies, for your children's sake, why don't you come? Oh, why don't you come, you husbands, for your wives' sake? Oh, for heaven's sake, why don't you come? Oh, why in the hell don't you come?"
• Dave McKinley was a retired publisher who once saw his granddaughter deliberately step on an ant, so he lectured her on how wrong it was, because ants were defenseless, and lived in ant farms, and had electricity and running water, and taught us all a lesson about keeping busy, etc. At the end of his lecture, his granddaughter said, "Grandpa, you old son of a bitch, I love you."
• Samuel Johnson went to a market to buy fish, but he discovered that the fish at a certain shop were not fresh. The woman selling the fish argued with him and insisted that the fish were fresh, so Dr. Johnson called her a noun, an adverb, and a verb. Because the woman didn't know what those words meant, she thought that Dr. Johnson was insulting her.
• John Downes, in his 1708 book Roscius Anglicanus, Or an Historical Review of the Stage, tells of an early performance of Romeo and Juliet, in which a Mrs. Holden enters and says, "O my Dear Count." Unfortunately - but to the amusement of the audience - Mrs. Holden left out the letter 'o' in the word 'Count."
• The language old-time muledrivers used was something awesome to behold. One muledriver stopped to invite his frontier preacher to climb aboard for a ride. Unfortunately, the muledriver was quickly forced to disinvite the preacher - as long as the preacher was around, the mules didn't understand a word the muledriver said.
• The baseball captain of Hamilton College was hopping mad about an error by an umpire long ago, so he was spewing out a steady stream of four-letter profanity. Suddenly, he noticed that the President of Hamilton College was standing nearby, so he changed his swearing to "Good gracious!"
• Actor David Niven enjoyed using bad language - over 400 four-letter words had to be edited out of his first book. However, Mr. Niven so liked his friend Fred Astaire, who didn't use bad language, that he refrained from using four-letter words in his presence.
• Donald Ogden Stewart frequently used bad language in mixed company. Once, he called a certain writer a horse's ass, but when he saw that he had offended a lady, he immediately apologized: "I'm terribly sorry, Toots. I didn't know you mind the word 'horse.'"
• Hank Caplan was a TV director in Canada who constantly used a favorite expletive. After finishing work on a production, the actors working with him gave him a present - a box of toilet paper.
• Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau was once thought to have mouthed the f-word in the House, but he claimed that the word he was mouthing was "Fuddle-duddle."
• Governor Huey Long of Louisiana (1893-1967) once said about the Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan: "… when I call him an s.o.b. I am not using profanity but am referring to the circumstances of his birth."
• "All pro athletes are bilingual. They speak English and profanity." - Gordie Howe.
• "When angry, count four; when very angry, swear." - Mark Twain.
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Bonus Links
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Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
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In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Busy week ahead.
Online Knitting Community
Ravelry
In a move that every other website should be paying close attention to, knitting and crochet-based social media platform Ravelry has announced an across-the-board ban for all posts in favor of Donald Trump and his administration. Apparently that's a thing you can do if you don't want extremely dangerous or toxic or hate-filled opinions to be spread on the platform you own! Has anyone told Twitter and YouTube and Reddit and Facebook about this? Because they should. It seems like a great idea.
Anyway, Ravelry has put up a statement explaining the decision, noting that the ban "includes support in the form of forum posts, projects, patterns, profiles, and all other content," which is bad news for however many people were posting pro-Trump bullshit on a site about knitting. The statement also sumps up Ravelry's position by saying, "We cannot provide a space that is inclusive of all and also allow support for open white supremacy. Support of the Trump administration is undeniably support for white supremacy." Again: Did you know about this, Twitter and Facebook and YouTube and Reddit?
In more specific terms: Ravelry is not specifically banning one political party in favor of another or saying that nobody is allowed to support Trump anywhere, it's just not going to allow it on the platform that it controls. It's also not going to go back through anyone's posts and ban them for things they've said in the past or allow anyone to try and force others into declaring where they stand on Trump, all of which should theoretically help avoid any of the negative consequences that a policy like this may otherwise cause. You can do whatever you want somewhere else, you just can't talk about how much you like Donald Trump or his racist policies on Ravelry.
The statement posted on Ravelry points out that it was adopted from a similar stance taken by RPG.net, which actually goes to the trouble of citing evidence for its stance that Trump is racist and that supporting his policies is also racist. It's very good, as is Ravelry's extremely cute login page. That doesn't really have anything to do with Trump, but we've said his name a lot here and we could use the restorative power of some cute animals playing in yarn.
Ravelry
Graphic Novel
Mueller Report
A San Diego-based comic publisher has figured out a novel way to actually get people to read the Mueller report: Turn it into a graphic novel.
IDW Publishing announced on Friday that it is publishing "The Mueller Report: Graphic Novel," an illustrated version of the investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller and his team into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election.
Justin Eisinger, who's editing the book, believes comic illustrations are the key to drawing more eyeballs to the report's findings.
Artist Shannon Wheeler, who is doing the book with journalist Steve Duin, said he was surprised by how "readable" Mueller's report actually is - and says real-life characters like President Don-Old Trump, former Attorney General Jeff Sessions and former Trump adviser Steve Bannon are "straight out of Dick Tracy."
"The part of the report where Trump learns about the investigation and freaks out, saying 'I'm fucked!' It makes me laugh every time," Wheeler told HuffPost.
Mueller Report
Statue Stolen
Marilyn Monroe
Last July, a man named Austin Clay was arrested after he destroyed Donald Trump's Hollywood Walk Of Fame star with a pickax that he had hidden in a guitar case. As the story goes, he then called the cops on himself, told them "see you soon," and patiently waited for the police to show up and arrest him-at which point his bail was supposedly paid by James Otis, the heir to the Otis Elevator fortune who had also previously destroyed Trump's star in 2016. Now, Clay has (allegedly) struck again, but the motivations for this latest stunt seem less obvious.
According to Variety, Clay has been arrested climbing on top of Los Angeles' Ladies Of Hollywood gazebo along the Walk Of Fame and cutting down a sculpture of Marilyn Monroe with a hacksaw. The statue itself has not been recovered, but the police claim that they have surveillance footage of a man climbing down the gazebo and then entering the Hollywood Roosevelt hotel with an unidentified accomplice and then another two unidentified "persons of interest." The Variety story doesn't offer any insight into why Clay may have followed his anti-Trump stunt with this (alleged) anti-Marilyn Monroe stunt, but the Walk Of Fame luckily just announced that it's giving Batman a star for some reason, so hopefully that'll scare off any Los Angeles ne'er-do-wells.
The Variety story doesn't mention how James Otis may feel about any of this, but in looking him up we realized that the Otis Elevator Company at least has a Twitter account. No mention of Marilyn Monroe statues there, but there are a lot of tweets about elevator safety.
Marilyn Monroe
Comedy Tour
'Mr. And Mrs. America'
They've both been banned by television outlets, so they're taking their act on the road.
Comedians Roseanne Barr and Andrew Dice Clay will mount the "Mr. and Mrs. America" tour. He was banned for life by MTV for his risque comedy, and she was kicked off her ratings-leading Roseanne show for comments about former White House adviser Valerie Jarrett.
"She's a comic because she's wacky," Clay told Fox News. "I've known her since we were kids. When people ask about what she said, I say, 'She's a comic!' We gotta stop policing comedians. This is America!"
Clay said the tour was inspired by the national obsession with political discourse and the policing of comedians' language. Clay has been ostracized for his homophobic and sexist humor, but has built a career as an actor and still performs stand-up.
Clay and Barr performed together in March at the Laugh Factory in Las Vegas. It was her first performance since being booted off the Roseanne reboot.
'Mr. And Mrs. America'
"Unique"
Fourth of July
The Trump administration announced plans Wednesday for a unique July Fourth celebration - a made-for-TV event starring President Don-Old J. Trump (R-For $ale).
Trump will deliver a speech from the Lincoln Memorial as part of a daylong series of events that includes a military-themed parade near the National Mall and flyovers featuring planes used for Air Force One, officials said.
Draft dodger Trump's address at the Lincoln Memorial, to be delivered at a "Salute to America" event at 6:30 p.m. on Independence Day, is designed "to honor America's armed forces," the Interior Department said.
The president, who pushed for new July Fourth events based on a military parade he saw in France, promoted the new holiday approach during his speech Tuesday announcing his re-election bid. He urged supporters in Orlando, Florida, to bring flags to the event.
Critics of the idea say it turns a popular holiday tradition into a political rally. They question how the Trump-inspired events will affect traditional Fourth of July programs such as the annual concert on Capitol Hill featuring various entertainers and the National Symphony orchestra.
Fourth of July
Lies Planted Online
Russia
In August 2018, Spanish authorities uncovered a plot by anti-Brexit campaigners to assassinate leading Brexiteer and now favorite to be Britain's next prime minister, Boris Johnson. Or did they?
That story and others like it were created by a network of social media accounts operating from Russia which have attempted to seed false narratives across 30 different online platforms, a study by the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab has found.
The effort employed scores of accounts posting in at least six languages on platforms including Facebook and Twitter, as well as multiple other blogging sites and forums.
The aim was to "divide, discredit, and distract" Western countries by planting false information about topics ranging from alleged British meddling in the 2018 U.S. midterm elections to Irish paramilitary involvement in the poisoning of a former Russian spy in England last year.
The network was traced by following connections to a group of 16 accounts suspended in May by Facebook, which said they were "part of a small network emanating from Russia."
Russia
Colonize Your Skin
Ocean Bacteria
If sharks and sunburns don't scare you at the beach, perhaps this will: According to preliminary research out this week, it only takes a 10-minute swim in the ocean to get your skin covered in a fresh coat of bacteria. While that's not necessarily bad, some of these bacteria could be disease-causing or raise your risk of infection by disrupting your skin's delicate microbial environment, known as the microbiome.
For their quirky study, researchers at the University of California, Irvine went to the beach and recruited a select set of beachgoers. They were people who only swam in the ocean infrequently and who weren't using sunscreen at the moment. They also had to not have bathed in the past 12 hours, or used antibiotics in the past six months. Before swimming, the nine volunteers who were ultimately recruited had a skin swab taken from the back of their calf, then went on a 10-minute swim. After they returned and completely dried off, the skin was swabbed again, as well as six hours and a day later.
Before the swim, they found, the microbiome of each volunteer was easily distinguishable. But immediately afterward, their microbiomes changed and became much more similar to one another.
The changes to the microbiome were temporary, with most well on their way to baseline by 24 hours time. But there were some worrying findings. On each person, they detected common sea-dwelling bacteria called Vibrio. Most species of Vibrio are essentially harmless, but some are responsible for diseases like cholera, or can rarely cause flesh-eating skin infections, especially in people with weakened immune systems. The team's methods could only ID the presence of Vibrio bacteria, not their specific species. But they seemed to be drawn to people's skin, since a greater proportion of Vibrio bacteria was found on the volunteers' skin than in the surrounding ocean water the team also tested.
Ocean Bacteria
How Temperature Affects
Dreams
Thanks to a new study on the brains of genetically engineered mice, researchers finally have a better idea of why dreams are likely to be put on hold when the ambient temperature is too hot or too cold. Answer: it's too busy saving your skin.
Neuroscientists from the University of Bern in Switzerland broke a receptor gene in mice and watched how changes in temperature affected their sleep state, demonstrating the brain prioritises temperature control over dreaming.
When we're comfortable enough, our brains easily drift between a quiet state of rest and one described by the movement of our eyes: Rapid Eye Movement sleep (REM).
But it's also a common-enough experience that dreams just don't come as easily at times when your sleeping space is running too hot or too cold.
What's more, when 'warm-blooded' animals like us do dream, temperature regulation is suppressed. Sweating, shivering, panting and flushing just isn't as effective at maintaining our core temperature once REM sleep kicks in.
Dreams
Weekend Box Office
'Toy Story 4'
"Toy Story 4" brought the box office to life with a $118 million opening weekend after a three-week slump of underperforming sequels, but the Pixar film's below-expectations debut didn't quell continuing concerns about a rocky summer movie season.
The "Toy Story 4" opening, according to studio estimates Sunday, ranks as the fourth highest animated film opening ever, not accounting for inflation. Above it are 2018's "Incredibles 2" ($182 million), 2016's "Finding Dory" ($135 million), and 2007's "Shrek the Third" ($121 million). It's the year's third largest debut, trailing only a pair of other Disney releases: "Avengers: Endgame" and "Captain Marvel."
But heading into the weekend, a $140-150 million opening had seemed assured for "Toy Story 4," which played in 4,575 North American theaters. Adjusted for inflation, the film came in shy of the $110.3 million - or about $129 million in today's dollars - "Toy Story 3" made nine years ago.
The No. 2 film, Orion Pictures' horror remake "Child's Play" - cheekily positioned as the weekend's R-rated toy movie - also opened below expectations with $14.1 million. A remake of the 1988 original, the film stars Aubrey Plaza with Mark Hamill voicing the knife-wielding doll Chucky.
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. "Toy Story 4," $118 million ($120 million international).
2. "Child's Play," $14.1 million ($3.6 million international).
3. "Aladdin," $12.2 million ($32.9 million international).
4. "Men in Black International," $10.8 million ($30.2 million international).
5. "The Secret Life of Pets 2," $10.3 million ($10.8 million international).
6. "Rocketman," $5.7 million ($5.5 million international).
7. "John Wick: Chapter 3," $4.1 million ($3.4 million international).
8. "Godzilla: King of the Monsters," $3.7 million ($4 million international).
9. "Dark Phoenix," $3.6 million ($11.1 million international).
10. "Shaft," $3.6 million.
'Toy Story 4'
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