Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Paul Krugman: Benefits, Work, and Poverty (NY Times Blog)
Back in 2014 Paul Ryan declared that the War on Poverty had failed, so it was time to slash spending on anti-poverty programs. Last week the Trump Council of Economic Advisers declared not only that the War on Poverty has in fact substantially reduced poverty - which is what progressives have been saying all along - but that poverty is " largely over". (Do these people ever visit the real world?) And because poverty is over, they say, we should impose lots of work requirements on Medicaid and food stamps, which would have the effect of slashing spending on these programs. Somehow a completely opposite reading of the facts leads to the same policy conclusion. Funny how that works.
Lucy Mangan: "How egg freezing exposes a classic myth about modern women" (Stylist)
We need to look past these myths to know the truth, says Lucy Mangan.
Lucy Mangan: Come on, let's riot (The Guardian)
Anger is such an effort, and the British are not born to it
Felix Salmon: Universal Basic Income Is Not the Solution to Poverty (Slate)
So why do lefty wonks keep writing about it like it is?
Elena Ferrante: 'I used to devour news. Now, the uninterrupted rain of it feels like chaos' (The Guardian)
It seems to me more difficult today than in the past to try to understand how the world is going.
Hadley Freeman: I've been faddy about food since I was four - now all the beautiful people are at it (The Guardian)
Insisting you can't eat various major food groups for no actual real medical reason has become an essential part of looking like a modern, fabulous person.
Margalit Fox: Nancy Barbato Sinatra, 101, an Idol's First Wife and Lasting Confidante, Dies (NY Times)
Let Mrs. Sinatra, who hewed so long to steadfast midcentury propriety, have the last word. As Pete Hamill reported in his book "Why Sinatra Matters," first published in 1998, she was asked, later in life, why she had never remarried. Her answer was impeccable: "After Sinatra?"
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Presenting
Michael Egan
said:
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Reader Comment
Current Events
So tacky
When I was growing up, the most devastating cut was to call something tacky. The classless, crass King of Tacky even manages to tacky up his GD golf clubs. Would love to use one to bash his tacky head to bits. Epitome of Tacky.
Linda >^..^<
We are all only temporarily able bodied.
Thanks, Linda!
Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
from Marc Perkel
Marc's Guide to Curing Cancer
So far so good on beating cancer for now. I'm doing fine. At the end of the month I'll be 16 months into an 8 month mean lifespan. And yesterday I went on a 7 mile hike and managed to keep up with the hiking group I was with. So, doing something right.
Still waiting for future test results and should see things headed in the right direction. I can say that it's not likely that anything dire happens in the short term so that means that I should have time to make several more attempts at this. So even if it doesn't work the first time there are a lot of variations to try. So if there's bad news it will help me pick the next radiation target.
I have written a "how to" guide for oncologists to perform the treatment that I got. I'm convinced that I'm definitely onto something and whether it works for me or not isn't the definitive test. I know if other people tried this that it would work for some of them, and if they improve it that it will work for a lot of them.
The guide is quite detailed and any doctor reading this can understand the procedure at every level. I also go into detail as to how it works, how I figured it out, and variations and improvements that could be tried to enhance it. I also introduce new ways to look at the problem. There is a lot of room for improvement and I think that doctors reading it will see what I'm talking about and want to build on it. And it's written so that if you're not a doctor you can still follow it. It also has a personal story revealing that I'm the class clown of cancer support group. I give great interviews and I look pretty hot in a lab coat.
So, feel free to read this and see what I'm talking about. But if any of you want to help then pass this around to both doctors and cancer patients. I need some media coverage. I'm looking for as many eyeballs as possible to read these ideas. Even if this isn't the solution, it's definitely on the right track. After all, I did hike 7 miles yesterday. And this hiking group wasn't moving slow. So if this isn't working then, why am I still here?
I also see curing cancer as more of an engineering problem that a medical problem. So if you are good at solving problems and most of what you know about medicine was watching the Dr. House MD TV show, then you're at the level I was at when I started. So anyone can jump in and be part of the solution.
Here is a link to my guide: Oncologists Guide to Curing Cancer using Abscopal Effect
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
'READING AGAINST FASCISM'.
"CONTACT YOUR LEGISLATOR." YEAH RIGHT!
"THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING UNCIVIL."
"LOST" STANLEY KUBRICK SCREENPLAY IS FOUND
IT TAKES ONE TO KNOW ONE.
LET ME COUNT THE WAYS.
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
I need to take some time off to deal with family stuff on the east coast.
Today's page will be the last one until I return on the 25th.
There will be a page Thursday (26 July) and Friday (27 July), but then I need to take another day off to attend a couple of memorial services Friday (27 July) & Saturday (28 July) up north.
So, there will be no page on Saturday (28 July).
Things should return to what passes for normal Sunday, 29 July.
'Boaty McBoatface' Launch
Sir David Attenborough
The research ship which members of the public voted in favour of calling Boaty McBoatface has been launched on the River Mersey in Birkenhead.
RRS Sir David Attenborough, named after the famed broadcaster and naturalist, will be used for climate and ocean research in Antarctica and the Arctic.
Speaking at the launch, Sir David said seeing his name on the side was "the greatest possible honour".
The £200m vessel became famous two years ago when radio host James Hand suggested it should be called Boaty McBoatface.
It became an online sensation and won a public vote with over 120,000 votes cast for the name, but the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) had the final say and overrode the public's decision.
Sir David Attenborough
Long "Lost" Script Found
Stanley Kubrick
A "lost" screenplay written by filmmaker Stanley Kubrick has been unearthed.
Long before his death in 1999, the Full Metal Jacket director had adapted Stefan Zweig's 1913 novella Burning Secret into a script that is reportedly so close to being completed that it could find its way to the big screen.
Kubrick's 100-page plus screenplay - co-written with novelist Calder Willingham in 1956 - follows a predatory man who befriends a young boy in order to seduce his married mother while residing in a spa resort.
It was found by Bangor University film professor Nathan Abrams who said: "Kubrick aficionados know he wanted to do it, [but] no one ever thought it was completed. We now have a copy and this proves that he had done a full screenplay."
According to The Guardian, it's marked with the stamp of MGM's script department who may have cancelled the project when Kubrick breached his contract by signing up to WW1 classic Paths of Glory.
Stanley Kubrick
Comedy Central Roast
Bruce Willis
The stars came out on Saturday night to the Comedy Central Roast of Die Hard institution and American treasure Bruce Willis - and it was a celebratory festival of reading the non-Oscar nominated actor to filth. But one of the best roasts of the evening came from surprise guest - and Willis' ex-wife - Demi Moore.
In the middle of the ceremony, roast master Joseph Gordon-Levitt, out of nowhere, announced that it was Moore's turn take the dais, surprising Willis, roasters and the audience. Not originally on the roast roster, the Empire actress stepped out on stage to excited applause ready to drag Willis.
She dug into his age, his bald head, his music, and made some Die Hard cracks - all topics that were targeted during the evening. But there was one thing that only Moore could skewer that no one else on stage could: their marriage.
"I look at our marriage like The Sixth Sense," said Moore. "You were dead the whole time."
The delightful slams, drags, and Willis takedowns continued throughout the evening with Edward Norton, who stars with him in the upcoming Motherless Brooklyn. The three-time Oscar nominee came through with a clever roast that was a brilliant combination of celebrating himself and back-handed compliments aimed at Willis. He wondered how a bartender from New Jersey became the biggest movie stars of our time. Norton, who works tirelessly to be the acclaimed, high-brow thespian he is, admitted he was jealous that Willis does the same character every time and has an incredible career that has lasted decades. He said that he wanted to be just like Willis and told him that he yearned to "be the global d*ckhead powerhouse you are."
Bruce Willis
'Talking Dead' Interim Host
Yvette Nicole Brown
Yvette Nicole Brown will be the interim host of "The Talking Dead" when the chat show returns August 12, and will also host the "Walking Dead Season 9 Preview Special" on August 5, while AMC continues its investigation into Chris Hardwick.
"Yvette Nicole Brown will step in as an interim guest host of 'The Walking Dead Season 9 Preview Special' on August 5 and 'Talking Dead' when it returns following the premiere of 'Fear the Walking Dead' on August 12, as we work to complete our assessment related to Chris Hardwick," AMC said in a statement Friday.
It was previously announced that Brown would take over the AMC panels at San Diego Comic-Con happening next week from Hardwick, whose ex-girlfriend Chloe Dykstra accused him of abusive behavior in June.
Hardwick has been a mainstay at AMC since 2011, when he began hosting the talk show "Talking Dead" after the premiere episode of "The Walking Dead" Season 2. Hardwick has also hosted "Talking Bad" after "Breaking Bad," "Talking Saul" after "Better Call Saul," and "Talking Preacher" after "Preacher."
Yvette Nicole Brown
Remarks Draw Ire
European Culture
President-for-now Donald Trump's (R-Racist) lament this week that immigration is "changing the culture" of Europe echoed rising anti-immigrant feelings on both sides of the Atlantic, where Europe and the United States are going through a demographic transformation that makes some of the white majority uncomfortable.
Historians and advocates immediately denounced Trump's comments, saying such talk would encourage white nationalists.
Trump, in an interview with the (Rupert Murdoch owned) British newspaper The Sun, blamed immigration for a changing culture in Europe: "I think allowing millions and millions of people to come into Europe is very, very sad. I think you are losing your culture. Look around. You go through certain areas that didn't exist ten or 15 years ago."
Trump, the grandson of a German immigrant and the son of a Scottish immigrant to the United States, repeated his contention at a news conference with British Prime Minister Theresa May.
Claire M. Massey, a scholar at the Institute for British and North American Studies at Ernst-Moritz-Arndt Universität in Greifswald, Germany, said Trump's comments were "awfully painful," especially for the United Kingdom, where immigration has played a key role in rebuilding the country after World War II. "England and the United Kingdom wouldn't be what it is today without immigrants," she said.
European Culture
Lashes Out
Elon Musk
Elon Musk went on a bizarre rant against a British diver involved in last week's Thai cave rescue after the diver mocked the billionaire tech entrepreneur's proposed plan to help with the mission.
Vern Unsworth told CNN on Saturday that Musk's idea to use a kid-sized submarine to transport the 12 boys out of the cave where they were trapped was "just a PR stunt."
"He can stick his submarine where it hurts," said Unsworth, who had a "pivotal" role in the rescue by helping authorities pinpoint the boys' location, according to CNN. "It just had absolutely no chance of working. He had no conception of what the cave passage was like."
The 47-year-old Tesla and SpaceX CEO didn't take the criticism too kindly, lashing out at Unsworth in a series of tweets Sunday in which he baselessly accused the diver of being a pedophile.
Elon Musk
Ancient Temple Revealed
Mexico
Archaeologists scanning a Mexican pyramid which was damaged by an earthquake have uncovered an ancient temple inside.
A 7.1-magnitude earthquake which hit Mexico last September caused considerable damage to the country's historical sites - including the Teopanzolco pyramid in the southern state of Morelos.
But the earthquake has also revealed a temple nestled inside the large pyramid - which is thought to date back to 1150 and to belong to the Tlahuica culture, one of the Aztec peoples living in Mexico.
Among what remains of the temple - which measured 6m by 4m (20ft by 13ft) - archaeologists found an incense burner and ceramic crockery.
The discovery was made when scientists from Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) used radar to check for structural damage to the pyramid.
Mexico
New Trailer
Doctor Who
"Knock knock." "Who's there?" "Doctor." "Doctor who?" "Yep." With this hoary old playground gag, presenter Gary Lineker and analyst Alan Shearer introduced the BBC's eagerly awaited Doctor Who trailer. It was modest in scale - dialogue-free, no monsters nor pyrotechnics - but didn't disappoint.
During half-time of the World Cup final between France and Croatia (sob) came a 40-second teaser for the history-making new run of the time travel favourite, which will star the 13th Doctor and first female incarnation, played by Broadchurch actress Jodie Whittaker
It opened in earthy and low-key style, with new companion Ryan (Tosin Cole) refuelling in a greasy spoon caff while watching football on his smartphone. Condiments started rattling on the next table and while Ryan was distracted, a glowing hand snuck in and cheekily dipped a slice of toast into his egg yolk.
We then cut to another new sidekick, Yasmin (Mandip Gill), eating pizza at home with friends. Again there was a tremor. Knick-knacks trembled on bookshelves. Yasmin glimpsed a swishing coat disappearing around a corner, then looked down at her pizza box, which had magically refilled.
Finally came the third and final new character, Graham (Bradley Walsh). He was waiting at a chip shop counter, reading a newspaper. Footsteps passed and he did a double take upon noticing that his tabloid had transformed into the Beano comic's 1981 summer special. The significance of this wasn't lost on fans, who spotted that the same issue was read by Matt Smith's Eleventh Doctor five years ago in "The Rings of Akhaten".
Doctor Who
Weekend Box Office
'Hotel Transylvania 3'
"Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation" has checked into the No. 1 spot at the box office in its opening weekend and left the Dwayne Johnson action thriller, "Skyscraper," in the dust.
Sony Pictures estimated Sunday that the animated family movie earned $44.1 million from North American theaters. As the first in the franchise to open in the summer, it's just slightly under the previous installment's $48.5 million debut in September 2015.
Johnson's "Skyscraper," a rare original summer blockbuster, remained earthbound in its first weekend in North America. The Universal Pictures film brought in only $25.5 million domestically. "Skyscraper" cost a reported $125 million to produce, not accounting for marketing costs.
Second place went to Disney and Marvel's "Ant-Man and the Wasp," which brought in an additional $28.8 million in its second weekend, down 62 percent from last week. It's one of the steeper second week falls in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The first "Ant-Man" fell 53 percent.
Estimated ticket sales are 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."Hotel Transylvania 3," $44.1 million ($46.4 million international).
2."Ant-Man and the Wasp," $28.8 million ($35.3 million international).
3."Skyscraper," $25.5 million ($40.4 million international).
4."Incredibles 2," $16.2 million.
5."Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom," $15.5 million.
6."The First Purge," $9.1 million.
7."Sorry to Bother You," $4.3 million.
8."Sicario: Day of the Soldado," $3.9 million.
9."Uncle Drew," $3.2 million.
10."Ocean's 8," $2.9 million.
'Hotel Transylvania 3'
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