from Bruce
Anecdotes
Money
• A wealthy man was dying, so he made out a will, leaving his books to a yeshivah (theological college) and his money to his children. The Chofetz Chayim suggested that he make a different will, leaving his money to the yeshivah and his books to his children. He explained, “The yeshivah already has books, and by your leaving your books to your children, they may decide to read them. On the other hand, your children have the ability to earn money, as you did. The students of the yeshivah, however, are engaged in study and have no head for business.”
• The sons of Texas preacher Edwin Porter worked while they were growing up, something that Rev. Porter encouraged because idle hands can be tempted to do the work of the Devil. Although the money the boys earned was theirs, Rev. Porter kept an eye on it and on how his boys spent it. Whenever he saw that one of his sons was tempted to spend money on something that Rev. Porter — and in his opinion, God — didn’t approve of, he would borrow the money until the temptation had passed, then repay the money with interest.
• In York, England, Quakers sometimes passed through a Toll Bar on their way to the Friends Meeting House to worship. The Toll Bar was free to preachers going to church to preach, but Quakers do not preach unless called by the spirit to preach. Whenever the Toll Bar attendant asked the Quakers if they were going to preach, they replied, “We are going to hold a Quaker Meeting; it is likely that we shall preach, but if we do not we will tell thee on our return and pay toll both ways.”
• The spiritual leader Ho Chi Zen (a figment of a satiric mind) used to accept students. Outside the door of the room where he taught, he left a basket and a sign that said, “If you wish to donate, do so before class.” He always watched his students to see who donated money and who did not. If any student donated money three classes in a row, he kicked that student out for being excessively gullible.
• A man’s donkey was dying, so he vowed to Allah that if Allah saved the donkey’s life he would sell it for one dollar. The donkey did get well, so the man brought the donkey into the marketplace, along with a cat which he set on the donkey’s back. “For sale. A donkey for one dollar,” shouted the man, “provided that you also buy my cat, whose price is $1,000.”
• English Prime Minister William Gladstone, an Anglican, once spoke with Father Healy and criticized an Italian priest who claimed to be able to rescue souls from Purgatory — for 25 lire per soul. Father Healy, however, was unwilling for his religion to be criticized, so he replied, “Tell me of any other church, Mr. Gladstone, that would do it at that price.”
• An old Scotsman was once approached by a Salvation Army lass who held out her tambourine to him and asked, “Will you give a shilling to the Lord?” The old Scotsman asked how old she was, and she said 16. He then said, “Well, I’m 79, and I’ll be seeing the Lord before you will, so I’ll just hand Him the shilling myself.”
• A new Sunday School teacher named Rolf E. Aaseng once got so annoyed at a church piano that wouldn’t play E-flat that he ordered the church superintendent to have it fixed — “even if I have to pay for it myself.” The superintendent sent him the bill, and he did have to pay for it himself.
Music
• During the 1930s, African-American contralto Marian Anderson sang several spirituals and other religious songs in the USSR, where religion was outlawed. Therefore, she was not surprised that the interpreter announcing her program tried to play down their religious nature. For example, the interpreter would say that Ms. Anderson was going to sing “an aria by Schubert” instead of saying that she would sing Schubert’s “Ave Maria.” However, the audience knew exactly what she was singing, and when they wanted an encore, they shouted out religious titles such as “Ave Maria,” not “an aria by Schubert.”
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© Copyright Bruce D. Bruce; All Rights Reserved
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Presenting
Michael Egan
U.S.A. took the day off.
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION
BANDCAMP MUSIC
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION OF BANDCAMP MUSIC
Music: "Laugharne 68 (The Drunken Guitar)"
Album: WALK LIKE A KING: SONGS FOR DYLAN THOMAS
Artist: Terry Clarke
Artist Location: UK
Info: “Anglo-Irish Reading boy, raised right on Dion DiMucci, Eddie Cochran & Don & Phil. Always wears shiny boots when stepping up to the microphone.”
“The Dylan Thomas who sailed into New York in 1949 left behind a bombed-out, impoverished, austerity-ridden Great Britain. It was a Britain where lives were still ruled by rationing and darkened by memories of air raids and fear. He sailed into a neon-drenched world, where be-bop was spoken, where the dreams of Elvis Presley, The Drifters, Johnny Cash, West Side Story, Dion DiMucci, and Jack Kerouac were about to be born. I imagine Dylan Thomas sitting in the Cadillac's back seat, dropping Almond Joy wrappers in the footwell, while up front, Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty are scanning the road like hawks on jazz, in Kerouac's ON THE ROAD. …”
Price: €1 (EURO) for track; €7 (EURO) for 16-track album
Genre: Country
Links:
WALK LIKE A KING: SONGS FOR DYLAN THOMAS
Terry Clarke on Bandcamp
Terry Clarke on YouTube
Other Links:
David Bruce's Amazon Author Page
David Bruce's Smashwords Page
David Bruce's Blog #1
David Bruce's Blog #2
David Bruce's Blog #3
David Bruce's Apple iBookstore
David Bruce has over 140 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
New Venture
Michael Egan
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION
Recommended Video
Mrs. Betty Bowers Explains Religious Freedom
WHY IS JESUS WHITE BY MUHAMMAD ALI
Other Links:
David Bruce's Amazon Author Page
David Bruce's Smashwords Page
David Bruce's Blog #1
David Bruce's Blog #2
David Bruce's Blog #3
David Bruce's Apple iBookstore
David Bruce has over 140 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
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 shittens were quite displeased with today's anti-flea measures.
Weekend Box Office
‘F9’
Even with close to 40% of the Canadian box office offline as Ontario remains closed until late July, and the Arclight/Pacific Theatres closed in L.A., the total weekend domestic box office came in at $98.08M per Comscore’s early Sunday AM estimate. Some distributors even have the weekend higher at $99.1M.
It’s a great indication that the domestic marketplace is close to normal pre-pandemic levels, even though 79% of 5,88K US and Canadian theaters are open. At the same time, 44 states are operating without any capacity restrictions.
The last time the weekend box office was this high during the pandemic was over the Friday-Sunday span of the 4-day Memorial Day weekend, which grossed $80.8M.
Granted, Universal’s F9 repped 71% of the total domestic B.O. business this past weekend, with a 3-day of $70M. But it outstripped even pre-pandemic 2020 weekend results, i.e. the weekend of Feb. 28-March 1, 2020, when Universal/Blumhouse’s The Invisible Man opening pushing all titles to $97.3M; the weekend of Feb. 7-9, when Warner Bros.’ Birds of Prey debuted, with all pics making $95.4M; and the weekend of Jan. 31-Feb. 2, when all movies grossed $80.8M during the third weekend of Bad Boys for Life.
Even more impressive about the power of the B.O., is that even though Arclight and Pacific theaters are currently closed (AMC and Regal are taking over some of the leases), the total market’s B.O. for F9 in L.A. bested Hobbs & Shaw‘s by close to 30%. It goes to show that despite big theater closures, box office migrates to the next big multiplex in a neighborhood.
‘F9’
“Different Direction”
George R.R. Martin
Author George R.R. Martin is still working on the next installment in his epic series of fantasy novels that became the basis for HBO’s Game of Thrones.
But he took time away from his labors to lament how the television version seemed to get away from his source material.
The TV series ending has been widely condemned by fans, and Martin’s slow output on his A Song of Ice and Fire novels (The Winds of Winter is next in the planned series) has angered many eager for a proper resolution. Martin said he was surprised that the television series out-stripped his output.
“When they began the [TV] series, I had four books already in print, and the fifth one came out just as the series was starting in 2011. I had a five-book head-start, and these are gigantic books, as you know,” Martin told PBS in Chicago. “I never thought they would catch up with me, but they did. They caught up with me and passed me.”
Martin also noted that when the television series moved ahead of his source material, he felt it “going in somewhat different directions. So, I’m still working on the book, but you’ll see my ending when that comes out,” he said.
George R.R. Martin
Hillsborough, CA
The owner of the fanciful Flintstones house in a posh San Francisco suburb settled a lawsuit with the town of Hillsborough. But the agreement will allow Fred and his friends to remain.
In a yabba dabba dispute that pitted property rights against government rules that played out in international media, retired publishing mogul Florence Fang defended her colorful, bulbous-shaped house and its elaborate homage to “The Flintstones” family, featuring Stone Age sculptures inspired by the 1960s cartoon, along with aliens and other oddities..
The town, however, called the towering dinosaurs and life-size sculptures “a highly visible eyesore” and sued Fang, alleging she violated local codes when she put dinosaur sculptures in the backyard and made other landscaping changes that caused local officials to declare it a public nuisance.
Hillsborough went to court in 2019 after Fang failed to comply with multiple stop-work orders, as well as an order to remove the features around the multimillion-dollar property with its 2,730-square-foot (254-square-meter) home. Fang counter-sued. The Daily Post in Palo Alto first reported news of the settlement on Thursday.
According to records, the settlement stipulates that the town will review and approve a survey of the landscaping improvements. In turn, Fang will apply for building permits. The town will also pay Fang $125,000, and she will drop the lawsuit — which was dismissed in state court on April 27.
Hillsborough, CA
Good Guy With A Gun
Colorado
A "heroic" civilian bystander who intervened in an active shooting in Colorado this week was fatally shot by a responding officer, CNN reports.
The incident took place in Arvada, Colorado, on Monday. Police were responding to a suspicious person report in Arvada's Olde Town Square when the shooting suspect, identified as Ronald Troyke, got out of his car and fatally shot one of the police officers. "The suspect then shot out the windows of nearby patrol cars before running back to his truck to retrieve his AR-15, and back towards the square," CNN reports based on the police statement.
That's when Johnny Hurley, 40, evidently confronted Troyke and killed him with his handgun. "A responding Arvada Police Officer then encountered Mr. Hurley, who was holding the suspect's AR-15," the police statement said. "The officer shot him."
"Arvada PD views Mr. Hurley's actions as heroic," the statement went on, adding that his "actions certainly saved others from serious injury or death."
Colorado
Blah, Blah, Blah
Barr
Former Attorney General William Barr (R-Dona Nobis Fuck Him) bluntly dismissed some of former President Donald Trump (R-Lock Him Up)'s election fraud allegations as "bulls***" in new interviews published Sunday in the Atlantic.
“My attitude was: It was put-up or shut-up time,” Barr recalled at one point. “If there was evidence of fraud, I had no motive to suppress it. But my suspicion all the way along was that there was nothing there. It was all bulls***.”
The comment was part of multiple interviews Barr did this spring with ABC News' Jonathan Karl, who wrote the Atlantic article describing Barr’s break with Trump in the aftermath of the 2020 election.
In the Atlantic, Barr said then-Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had been encouraging him to speak out about the election. “Bill, I look around, and you are the only person who can do it,” McConnell reportedly told Barr.
Trump was apparently livid with Barr for his comments to the AP.
Barr
Trapping Twice As Much Heat
Earth
Planet Earth is now trapping twice as much heat as it did 14 years ago, according to findings of a new study, which raise concerns about the possible acceleration of climate change.
For the study, researchers looked at data from the Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) instrument, which flies on several NASA Earth-observation satellites and measures how much energy the planet absorbs in the form of sunlight and how much of that it emits back into space in the form of infrared radiation.
The difference between the incoming and outflowing energy is called the energy imbalance, and the study found that in the period between 2005 and 2019 the imbalance doubled compared to the years before.
The scientists used additional data from Argo, an international network of robotic sensors distributed all over the world’s oceans, which measure the rate at which oceans heat up. The researchers said comparing CERES data to Argo helped strengthen the findings as global oceans are known to absorb up to 90% of the excess energy trapped by the planet.
Meanwhile, the shrinking size of ice sheets, caused by the planet's warming, leads to less of the incoming energy being reflected away from the planet's surface.
Earth
Churches Burn
Canada
Two more Catholic churches burned down in indigenous communities in western Canada early on Saturday.
The fires at St Ann's Church and the Chopaka Church began within an hour of each other in British Columbia.
Officers said both buildings were completely destroyed, and they were treating the fires as "suspicious".
Last Monday two other Catholic churches in the province were destroyed in fires, as Canada marked National Indigenous People's Day.
Canada
Vandals Build Rock Cairns
New Mexico
Rangers would like a word with whoever built hundreds of rock cairns at the Petroglyph National Monument in New Mexico.
Rock cairns, “human-made stacks, mounds or piles of rocks,” are considered vandalism since they disrupt the natural landscape, a National Park Service release says.
More than 300 new rock cairns, ranging from a few stones to ones several feet high, have been found at the national monument, which includes more than 20,000 petroglyphs.
“Moving rocks around can destroy archaeological sites, increases the potential for erosion by exposing the soils to wind and water erosion, and can disturb wildlife, plants, and insects that make their home in the protected underside of the rocks,” the release said.
Work crews are dismantling the cairns and trying to return the rocks to their original locations, although that will not always be possible.
New Mexico
Slipped From History
'La Botaniste'
When sorting through books gathering dust in the attic, it's common to find mementos of the past such as a poem, a pressed-flower, or a letter.
But when staff at the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) went through hundreds of old plant books, they stumbled on a collection of botanical treasures the likes of which they'd never seen before.
Tucked inside a copy of The English Flora from 1830 were poems, doodles, plant specimens and a cartoon.
Judging by the contents, the owner was a keen plants woman. But her name, Isabella A Allen, appears to have slipped from history.
She may be the early 19th Century botanical illustrator about which little is known. Or she could be among the legions of uncelebrated 19th Century women with a passionate interest in plants. Either way, the RHS is hoping to track her down to find out more about her life.
"All we've got is a reasonably common name and lots of contextual stuff that she's interested in botany," says head of libraries and exhibitions, Fiona Davison.
'La Botaniste'
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