from Bruce
Anecdotes
Mothers
• When comedian Bob Smith came out to his mother, she said, “You’re gay … well, it could be worse. Look at the Gardiners across the street with those retarded grandchildren.” Mr. Smith laughed and said, “Thanks, Mom. I love that comparison.” Shortly afterward, she wrote him a loving letter of acceptance.
• As a young boy, Bart Conner was already into gymnastics. Often, he used to come home from school, and talk to his mother while he was standing on his head. Once, while he was standing on his head, she stood on her head and they talked to each other.
• Figure skater Peggy Fleming keeps scrapbooks filled with photographs of her family and children in a cabinet near her garage door. Why? If her house is ever threatened by fire, she wants her photographs handy so she can save them.
Music
• Before her marriage, soprano Frances Alda had many beaus. Once, four of her beaus showed up on the same day to hear her perform at the Metropolitan Opera. Each beau told her where he would be sitting at the Met. During the course of the opera, Ms. Alda sang in turn to each part of the Met where she knew one of her beaus would be sitting. By the time the opera was over, she had convinced each beau that she had been singing especially to him.
• Ballerina Suzanne Farrell and her choreographer husband, Paul Mejia, bought an island in a lake in the Adirondack Mountains and turned it into a dance camp. Often, local tourist boats would cruise past the island, which the tour guides called “Ballerina Island.” A nearby local couple ate their dinners during the early ballet class so they could enjoy the romantic music.
• John von Neumann was a child prodigy, but not in music. His parents made him take music lessons, but they were surprised at his lack of improvement. Then they discovered that as their son practiced music scales on his cello, he was reading a science or history book that he had placed on his music stand.
Old Age
• Paul Douglas used to be a United States senator. When he was old, he suffered a stroke and was confined to a wheelchair. One day, while reaching for something, he fell out of his wheelchair. The only other person at home was his wife, who wasn’t strong enough to pick him up and put him back in the wheelchair. She told her husband, “Paul, we haven’t had a picnic in such a long time,” then she went into the kitchen and made some sandwiches. She brought out the sandwiches, put a few potted plants around to make the scene look more like the country, and opened a bottle of wine. The two had their picnic, and then they read love poetry to each other until someone arrived to help pick up Mr. Douglas.
• An aged parent had a problem, so he asked R’ Shmuel Salant for advice. The problem was this: His sons had moved to America, and now they did not keep the Sabbath or observe the other commandments that God had given His chosen people. However, his sons did send him money, and he worried whether it was proper to accept the money. R’ Shmuel Salant said, “Your sons wish to keep only one commandment, that of honoring their parents, and you wish to deprive them of that as well?”
• All his life, Rabbi Moshe Feinstein got up each day at 4 a.m. in order to study. When he was 85, his wife pleaded with him to get up a little later, so that he could rest more, but he replied that he needed to get up that early to study because he didn’t want to remain an ignoramus.
Olympics
• United States figure skater Tara Lipinski has wanted to win a medal at the Olympics ever since she was a child. When she was still a toddler, the Olympics were on TV, but she didn’t pay much attention until some medals were awarded — then she was fascinated. She watched the athletes stand on podiums, wearing ribbons around their necks and holding flowers. Tara’s parents used to keep her toys in Tupperware containers, so to create a podium, she turned over one of the Tupperware containers and stood on it, then she asked her mother for a ribbon and some flowers so she could be like the athletes on TV.
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© Copyright Bruce D. Bruce; All Rights Reserved
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Presenting
Michael Egan
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION
BANDCAMP MUSIC
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION OF BANDCAMP MUSIC
Track: "Easy Money"
Album: BE ONE
Artist: Pete Cullen & the Hurt
Artist Location: Brisbane, Australia
Record Company: Aldora Britain Records
Record Company Location: Rothley, UK
Info:
“Pete Cullen is a country/blues Singer-Songwriter from Brisbane, Australia. He has released five albums that can be found on streaming services.”
“Aldora Britain Records is an e-zine and record label that promotes the music and work of authentic independent or underground artists from all around the world. Originally established in 2013, they revamped themselves in 2018 with a brand-new approach. Their first weekly compilation, aptly titled THE SECOND COMING, was released in late 2019. They now also release original singles, EPs and charity projects.”
Price: £1 for 15-track album by various artists
“Easy Money” is also on Pete Cullen & the Hurt album HIGH TIDE. Price: $20 (AUS) for 11 tracks.
Genre: Country. Various.
Links:
BE ONE
HIGH TIDE
Pete Cullen on Bandcamp
Aldora Britain Records on Bandcamp
Aldora Britain Records on YouTube
Other Links:
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Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
New Venture
Michael Egan
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION
Recommended
Bill Maher: New Rule: I Want My Lawyer (YouTube)
Marc Dion: TikTok End of the World (Creators Syndicate)
If anyone in America still cares about Ukraine, it's President Joe Biden, who keeps doggedly sending weapons to Ukraine, fulfilling America's traditional role of defending freedom everywhere in the world. Wyatt Earp fantasists who own 17 guns and practice their fast draw in front of the mirror when their wives are out grocery shopping are not defending freedom. Biden is defending freedom.
Other Links:
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Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
Reader Comment
Current Events
Linda >^..^<
We are all only temporarily able bodied.
Thanks, Linda!
that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
The defective rooster started warming up around 1am.
L.A. Protest
Jodie Sweetin
Full House actress Jodie Sweetin is “OK,” a rep for the actress tells The Hollywood Reporter after video emerged this weekend showing Sweetin being pushed and falling to the ground during a protest in Los Angeles.
In the video, posted to social media by freelance photojournalist Mike Ade, Sweetin is shown close to a group of police officers. One of them appears to push her and she then appears to trip and fall onto the street. She quickly gets up and collects herself before the protesters chant “no justice, no peace.”
In a statement, Sweetin said, “I’m extremely proud of the hundreds of people who showed up yesterday to exercise their First Amendment rights and take immediate action to peacefully protest the giant injustices that have been delivered from our Supreme Court. Our activism will continue until our voices are heard and action is taken. This will not deter us, we will continue fighting for our rights. We are not free until ALL of us are free.”
The LAPD said in a statement that it was “aware” of the video and that the officers were not letting the group get onto the freeway.
Jodie Sweetin
Hella Mega Tour
Billie Joe Armstrong
Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong told a British crowd that he’s “renouncing” his American citizenship following the Supreme Court’s decision to repeal Roe v. Wade.
Performing live at London Stadium on the band’s Hella Mega tour with Fall Out Boy and Weezer on the night of the Court’s decision Friday, the American Idiot singer said, “Fuck America, I’m fucking renouncing my citizenship. I’m fucking coming here.”
Armstrong added, “There’s just too much fucking stupid in the world to go back to that miserable fucking excuse for a country.” As for whether he’d actually move to U.K., Armstrong insisted, “Oh, I’m not kidding. You’re going to get a lot of me in the coming days.”
Armstrong isn’t the only American artist currently across the Atlantic condemning the assault on abortion access. Phoebe Bridgers, Billie Eilish and Olivia Rodrigo — all of whom played Glastonbury this weekend — each condemned the Supreme Court’s decision during their sets, with Rodrigo dedicating a cover of Lily Allen’s “Fuck You” to five Justices specifically: Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett, Brett Kavanaugh. “We hate you!” Rodrigo added.
Armstrong wasn’t even the only U.S. artist to consider ditching America for the U.K. “Honestly I’m thinking about never going back to America,” Kacey Musgraves told the Glastonbury crowd. “Anyone know anyone with positions for sheep farming? That sounds really good right now.”
Billie Joe Armstrong
Weekend Box Office
‘Elvis’ / ‘Top Gun’
Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis Presley biopic “Elvis” shook up theaters with an estimated $30.5 million in weekend ticket sales, but — in a box-office rarity — “Elvis” tied “Top Gun: Maverick,” which also reported $30.5 million, for No. 1 in theaters.
Final figures Monday, once Sunday’s grosses are tabulated, will sort out which film ultimately won the weekend. With a high degree of accuracy, studios can forecast Sunday sales based on Friday and Saturday business, though numbers often shift by a few hundred thousand dollars.
The “Elvis”/“Top Gun” showdown — along with the new Blumhouse horror release “The Black Phone” and big holdovers in “Jurassic World: Dominion” and Pixar’s “Lightyear” — made for one of the most competitive, and busy, weekends in movie theaters in the pandemic era.
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.
1. (Tie) “Elvis,” $30.5 million.
1. (Tie) “Top Gun: Maverick,” $30.5 million.
3. “Jurassic World: Dominion,” $26.4 million.
4. “Black Phone,” $23.4 million.
5. “Lightyear,” $17.7 million.
6. “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,” $1.7 million.
7. “Jugjugg Jeeyo,” $725,000.
8. “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” $533,000.
9. “The Bob’s Burgers Movie,” $513,000.
10. “The Bad Guys,” $440,000.
‘Elvis’ / ‘Top Gun’
Baseball Without Announcers
Peacock
NBC Sports executive producer Sam Flood realizes that game telecasts without announcers have been attempted a couple times, mostly without success. He is hoping the July 3 game between the Kansas City Royals and Detroit Tigers on Peacock will reverse that trend.
Peacock will not have any announcers in the booth for its streaming coverage of the AL Central matchup from Detroit’s Comerica Park. Instead, reporters will take fans around the ballpark and view the game from different vantage points.
“The whole idea of this is treating a game completely different. We’re going to take you out to the ballpark,” said Flood, who is also the network’s president of production. “We just want to be the ultimate fan’s experience and spend it like anyone else. It’s an American holiday celebration weekend. We’re going to lean in and treat baseball like fans do.”
The matchup between Kansas City and Detroit — both under .500 — also gives Peacock a chance to be creative in a way it perhaps wouldn’t with a game including the Mets, Yankees or Dodgers.
Peacock
Supreme Court Justices Who ‘Lied Under Oath’
AOC
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) is advocating impeachment for Supreme Court justices who she says lied during their confirmation hearings when they assured senators that Roe v Wade was established precedent. “If we allow Supreme Court nominees to lie under oath and secure lifetime appointments to the highest court of the land and then issue, without basis… rulings that deeply undermine the human and civil rights of the majority of Americans, we must see that through,” the congresswoman said during an interview on Meet the Press.
“I believe lying under oath is an impeachable offense,” she added, referring to Trump-appointed Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. “I believe that violating federal law in not disclosing income from political organizations, as Clarence Thomas did years ago, is also potentially an impeachable offense. I believe that not recusing from cases that one clearly has family members involved in with very deep violations of conflict of interest are also impeachable offenses.”
“I believe that [impeachment] is something that should be very seriously considered, including by senators like Joe Manchin and Susan Collins,” the congresswoman added.
Since the court issued its decision on Friday, both Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Joe Manchin (D-W. Va.) have said in statements that Gorsuch and Kavanaugh assured them during the confirmation process that they would not overturn the 1973 ruling. “This decision is inconsistent with what Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh said in their testimony and their meetings with me, where they both were insistent on the importance of supporting long-standing precedents that the country has relied upon,” Collins said in a statement following the ruling.
Ocasio-Cortez also did not mince words when responding to Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s defense of the trigger abortion ban in his state that only makes exceptions for the life of the mother but not incest or rape. While Hutchinson claims he disagrees with Arkansas’ lack of an exception for rape and incest, he is the governor who signed the ban into law. Hutchinson told Chuck Todd during an interview Sunday morning that he “would’ve preferred a different outcome” than to ban abortion in all cases in his state except to save the life of the mother (but again, he signed the bill). “I would’ve preferred a different outcome than that. But that’s not the debate today in Arkansas. It might be in the future. But for now, the law triggered with only one exception,” Hutchinson said.
AOC
Land Swap
Arizona
A U.S. appeals court has ruled that the federal government may give thousands of acres in Arizona to Rio Tinto Plc for a copper mine, upholding a lower court's ruling and rejecting a request from Native Americans who said the land has religious and cultural import.
The 2-1 ruling from the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, issued late Friday night, essentially defers to a 2014 decision made by the U.S. Congress and then-President Barack Obama to give the land to Rio for its Resolution Copper project as part of a complex land swap deal.
Apache Stronghold, a nonprofit group comprised of members of the San Carlos Apache tribe and others, said it would appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Arizona dispute centers on the federally owned Oak Flat Campground, which some Apache consider home to deities and which sits atop a reserve of more than 40 billion pounds of copper. If a mine is built, it would create a crater 2 miles (3 km) wide and 1,000 feet (304 m) deep that would destroy that worship site.
While two judges said they were sensitive to Apaches' religious concerns, they stressed their ruling was narrowly tailored to the question about whether the government can do what it wants with its own land and whether the land transfer would prevent Apaches from practicing their religion.
Arizona
Bullying Issue
Friendswood, Texas
A former Marine and pro soccer player has pulled out of grand marshal duties for a July 4 parade in Friendswood, Texas, after a conservative Houston radio-show host targeted her online with a Twitter post featuring a photo of her son.
Haley Carter and her family received physical threats of violence as the apparent result of Jesse Kelly’s tweet, according to a statement by the suburban Houston city. The tweet falsely suggested Carter was a Communist, criticized her advocacy against gun violence and referred to Friendswood as a conservative “blood red city.”
“She’s a gun-grabber. She’s into drag. She’s into trans activism,” the tweet read from Kelly, who is a periodic guest on Tucker Carlson’s primetime Fox News show and hosts a nationally syndicated radio program. The tweet also featured a photo of Carter’s son, screengrabbed from a social media post.
“This year’s selected Grand Marshal, Haley Carter, has voluntarily stepped down after receiving threats of harm to herself and her family and will not be participating in any of the Fourth of July activities,” the Friendswood Parks and Recreation Department said in a statement Thursday. “There will be no replacement Grand Marshal.”
Kelly, whom the Houston Chronicle described as a “failed congressional hopeful” and “former RV salesman,” delighted in the move, posting a follow-up tweet featuring a video gif of a man walking away from a massive explosion.
Friendswood, Texas
Ukrainian Women
Fundraise
Nastsassia Nasko says she came up with the idea by accident.
A few days after Russia invaded Ukraine in late February, she had posted on Twitter asking if someone with a car could help evacuate an acquaintance out of the Kharkiv, one of the first Ukrainian cities to be besieged by Russian troops.
When nobody responded to her, the 23-year-old tweeted, half-jokingly, that she would send a nude picture of herself to whoever was able to help.
Within five minutes, she had more than 10 messages in her inbox, she told Insider. After she sent a nude picture of herself to a man who offered to help, her acquaintance was safely driven out of Kharkiv.
The experience sparked an idea and several days later — on International Women's Day — Nasko and her friend, Anastasiya Kuchmenko, launched "TerOnlyFans." ("Ter" is short for territorial defense.)
Fundraise
Mormon Crickets
Oregon
Driving down a windy canyon road in northern Oregon rangeland, Jordan Maley and April Aamodt are on the look out for Mormon crickets, giant insects that can ravage crops.
They’re not hard to spot. The insects, which can grow larger than 2 inches (5 centimeters), blot the asphalt.
Mormon crickets are not new to Oregon. Native to western North America, their name dates back to the 1800s, when they ruined the fields of Mormon settlers in Utah. But amidst drought and warming temperatures — conditions favored by the insects — outbreaks across the West have worsened.
Maley, an Oregon State University Extension Agent, and Aamodt, a resident of the small Columbia River town of Arlington, are both involved in Mormon cricket outreach and surveying efforts in the area.
In 2017, Arlington saw its largest Mormon cricket outbreak since the 1940s. The roads were “greasy” with the squashed entrails of the huge insects, which damaged nearby wheat crops.
Oregon
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