Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Jacob Heilbrunn: Mike Pence must be grinning as he waits in the wings (Spectator)
The Vice President is the only one who has everything to gain by remaining at his side and replacing him.
Paul Waldman: "Trump is in trouble, so he's reaching for his ace in the hole: hate" (Washington Post)
"[Former Speaker Newt] Gingrich - who is more responsible than any other single figure for America's slide into vicious, bitter partisanship over the last couple of decades - explained that "If Mollie Tibbetts is a household name by October, Democrats will be in deep trouble. If we can be blocked by Manafort-Cohen, etc., then GOP could lose [the House] badly." In other words, the danger for Republicans is that the news media might pay too much attention to one of the largest presidential scandals in decades and not enough attention to the story of one young woman's murder."
Paul Waldman: In his feud with Jeff Sessions, Trump has painted himself into a corner (Washington Post)
Because Trump has made it so clear that he despises Sessions because Sessions isn't in a position to fire Mueller for him, if and when he does fire Sessions, everyone knows that the only important criterion that he will use in choosing a new attorney general is whether that person will be willing to fire Mueller at Trump's direction.
Jill Filipovic: Stormy Daniels, Feminist Hero (NY Times)
For once we're listening to a woman who refuses to wear either a scarlet letter or a superwoman's cape.
Vanessa Williams: Ill-fated plan to close polling places in Georgia county recalled lingering prejudice (Washington Post)
Marcia Killingsworth, who lives in the city of Edison in Calhoun County, [said,] "Voting rights are everybody's issues. The right to vote is one of our, if not the most, fundamental rights that we have as Americans," she said. "Restricting it or making it more challenging for anybody should be everybody's concern." Republicans who control the state legislature and the executive branch "just keep putting up more and more hurdles" for some voters, Killingsworth said. "I think it's to disenfranchise people who might vote against their power base."
Benjamin Schmidt: The Humanities Are in Crisis (Atlantic)
Students are abandoning humanities majors, turning to degrees they think yield far better job prospects. But they're wrong.
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Presenting
Michael Egan
said:
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
from Bruce
WORK Anecdotes
• Otis Williams is the last of the original Temptations, the group that brought us "Ain't Too Proud to Beg," "Can't Get Next to You," "Get Ready," "Just My Imagination," and "Papa was a Rolling Stone." In addition to his talent with music, he has a talent with words. In 2007, instead of saying that he has no plans to retire at the current time, he said, "I'm going to ride the hair off the horse. When I get off the horse, the horse will be bald."
• Children's book illustrator and author Margot Zemach worked as a movie usherette at the famous Grauman's Chinese Theater when she was young. Unfortunately, she could not see well in the dark and so she was a horrible usherette, often stepping on people's feet and often seating people on top of other people. Fortunately, she got married, started to raise a family, and became a book illustrator-a job she could work at while using one foot to rock a baby bed.
• Mickey Mantle's father worked in the zinc mines of Commerce, Oklahoma, and he wanted Mickey to escape that fate by playing baseball. When Mickey was one day old, his father put a baseball in his hand. When Mickey was four years old, his father put a bat in his hands. When Mickey was five years old, his father began to pitch curve balls to him. Mickey escaped the zinc mines and made a career out of playing for the New York Yankees.
• During World War II, many American women became Rosie the Riveters. One such woman, Nova Lee McGhee Holbrook, worked at the Kaiser Shipyard in Richmond, California. When her boss warned her that being a welder meant that she would get dirty, she replied, "I can wash it off."
Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
Reader Comment
Current Events
Don't you know he's just seething? McCain's death has knocked him out of the news. There's nothing, even anything unseemly, he can do to grab the attention back. And they're saying things about McCain--patriot, that no one will EVER say about him!
Linda >^..^<
We are all only temporarily able bodied.
Thanks, Linda!
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
A TWOFER.
SOMEWHERE IN HELL SATAN CHUCKLES.
THE TRUTH DRIBBLES OUT.
THE TWISTED MIND OF KAVANAUGH.
BLASPHEMY.
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
The skunk is back and very aromatic.
At 50
'Hey Jude'
"Hey Jude" sums up the Beatles' turbulent summer of 1968 - a tribute to their friendship, right at the moment it was starting to fracture. The single was a smash as soon as they released it on August 26th, 50 years ago - their biggest hit, topping the U.S. charts for nine weeks. It's the Beatles at their warmest, friendliest, most open-hearted. John, Paul, George and Ringo sound utterly in sync, building to that power-drone "na na na na" chant. Yet it's a song born from conflict. Nobody knew they were falling apart - in fact, "Hey Jude" was released four days after Ringo officially quit the band, walking out on the White Album sessions. Paul wrote it during John's divorce, to cheer up his mate's five-year-old son. As Julian Lennon recalled, "He was just trying to console me and Mum." The world has been taking consolation from "Hey Jude" ever since.
It's one of very few Beatle songs about a conversation between men - and like "She Loves You," it's a conversation where one friend is urging the other to do right by a woman. (Neither Paul nor John really cared what men had to say about anything - that was one of their deepest spiritual connections.) George Martin fretted the radio wouldn't play a seven-minute single. John's reply: "They will if it's us." A classic statement of fabulously bitchy Beatle arrogance - yet the word "us" really jumps out of that line. "Hey Jude" is the sound of the lads working hard to capture that feeling of "us," after it stopped coming easy.
Back in May, John and Paul made a surprise appearance on The Tonight Show, during a brief NYC jaunt. The interview was a fiasco - guest host Joe Garagiola had barely any idea who they were. But there's a revealing moment, about four minutes into a truly painful chat. Garagiola asks, "The four of you, socially, are you that close?" Paul and John say "yeah" simultaneously - Paul says it twice, while John adds, "We're good friends, you know." They're totally blasé about it - just giving basic background info to this clueless American rube, as if they're telling him where Liverpool is or how many films they've made. To them, it's obvious. Nothing to get hung about.
But just a couple of weeks later, John had blown up his marriage, his family, every detail of his life. They would never have a simple answer to that question again.
That's where "Hey Jude" comes from.
'Hey Jude'
Hidden Figures
Katherine Johnson
Katherine Johnson and a highly-skilled team of female African-American mathematicians are credited with crunching the numbers by hand that allowed NASA to launch the first U.S. astronauts into space. On Sunday, Johnson turns 100.
Johnson, who has been dubbed the "human computer" and was featured in in the 2016 movie Hidden Figures , told The Virginian Pilot that she feels fortunate to have lived so long.
Congratulating the legendary mathematician, who worked at the Langley Research Center located in Hampton, Virginia, NASA shared several special birthday tweets, highlighting her accomplishments.
The achievements of Johnson and the women of her team, who overcame not only gender but also major racial divides in the 1950s and 1960s, by working with NASA, were not widely known until a couple years ago when author Margot Lee Shetterly published her book - Hidden Figures- which told their story.
The other women of her team are all now dead.
Katherine Johnson
Bear Wanders Through Hotel
'The Shining'
The Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado, famoulsy inspired Stephen King's novel "The Shining" after the author and his wife paid the place a visit. Now the renowned hotel is home to another scary encounter - a high-priority customer, you might say! But getting this guest checked out is where the focus was.
Someone videotaped a bear wandering around the lobby of The Stanley, and posted it to Facebook, where it's now going viral. At the time of publication, it had been viewed over 611,000 times.
"Late night visitor from the wildside visits our hotel lobby. We'll make an exception to the rule about jumping on the furniture."
"Bear leaves rating on Trip Advisor: I give the Stanley Hotel [two stars]," the Facebook comment read. "Would like to give it a [four star] rating but service was, well non existant [sic], no one around. I wandered around the lobby looking for someone so I could see if there was a vacancy for tonight. The lobby was gorgeous! Tables and chairs very sturdy and comfy. I would be willing to come back again and give the staff a second chance at service."
'The Shining'
America's Top Apple
Gala
The Red Delicious apple, an easy-to-transport variety that dominated grocery selection for decades, is no longer the most popular variety in the U.S. as the rise of the Gala apple and other fresh fruits signal changing consumer tastes and greater diversity in diets.
U.S. growers in 2018 will produce 52.4 million boxes of Gala apples, up 5.8 percent from last year, and 51.7 million of Red Delicious, down 11 percent, the U.S. Apple Association said Thursday in a statement. A box weighs 42 pounds. Red Delicious has been the nation's top apple for at least five decades, the group said. Granny Smith will edge out Fuji for third place, with each having about half the production of Red Delicious. The Honeycrisp apple is expected to surpass the Golden Delicious variety to enter the top five for the first time this year. Apples are increasingly consumed fresh, and consumers are seeking out more and sweeter-tasting varieties, the association said.
Red Delicious will still account for about half of U.S. apple exports, Seetin said.
China is the world's biggest apple producer, followed by the U.S., Poland, Italy and France, according to the association.
The largest state growers in the U.S. are Washington, New York, Michigan, Pennsylvania and California, the industry group says.
Gala
What The Flag Looks Like
American Flag
Meeting with children is a classic activity for politicians, and one that probably seems like it couldn't go wrong. But when Alex Azar, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, shared a picture of President-for-now Trump (R-Clueless) coloring with children from Ohio, plenty of people were quick to criticize the president over the photo.
Azar may not have realized it at the time, but the image shows that Trump had colored a blue stripe onto the American flag. (To be clear, the stripes on the U.S. flag are red and white; the blue is the background to flag's stars.)
The photo started gaining more attention when another Twitter user shared it with a zoom-in on the misplaced blue stripe. "The President has colored his flag wrong. That is all," the Twitter user, Talia, wrote.
After the photo began making the rounds, Twitter users started joking about why Trump might have drawn a blue stripe onto the flag. A number of people suggested that Trump was thinking of the Russian flag, which does feature a blue stripe.
Not surprisingly, many people thought Trump's apparent mistake was a bit hypocritical, considering his criticism of football players who've kneeled during the national anthem. The movement, started by Colin Kaepernick, is about protesting police brutality.
American Flag
Agent Orange
Vietnam
Vietnam has demanded Monsanto pay compensation to the victims of Agent Orange, which the company supplied to the US military during the Vietnam War.
It came in response to the firm being ordered to pay $289m (£226m) to a school groundsman who claims his use of its Roundup weedkiller contributed to his terminal cancer.
"The verdict serves as a legal precedent which refutes previous claims that the herbicides made by Monsanto and other chemical corporations in the US and provided for the US army in the war are harmless," a spokesman for Vietnam's foreign ministry, Nguyen Phuong Tra said.
Agent Orange was a chemical herbicide and defoliant used by the US military to deprive Viet Cong guerilla fighters of food and concealment.
Between 1961 and 1971, the US military sprayed around 12 million gallons of the chemical substance on over 30,000 miles of southern Vietnam.
Vietnam
Vodka Shots
Hillary
Hillary Clinton shared some memories Sunday about late Sen. John McCain - including how they once did vodka shots together on a trip to Estonia.
"We had fun and laughed a lot. We had some drinking associated with our fun," Clinton said on CNN about the time she spent travelling with McCain and other colleagues while she was a Democratic senator from New York in 2004.
While in Tallinn, Estonia, Clinton recalled "a memorable night in a hotel right on the old square doing vodka shots" - but denied the drinking contest was her idea.
"I would not take credit for it. I think it was a mutually agreed-upon venture but we used to say 'What happens in Tallinn, stays in Tallinn,'" she said, laughing.
Clinton said it was common for the six-term senator to invite his younger colleagues with him on codels, the name for official trips senators take around the world - but she was surprised when he asked her to come along.
Hillary
Sells For World Record
1962 Ferrari 250 GTO
The 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO that twice won its class in the Targa Florio has sold for a world record price of $48,405,000 at RM Sotheby's Monterey sale - making it the most expensive car ever sold at auction.
The GTO was driven onto the stage by five-time Le Mans winner Derek Bell. Auctioneer Maarten ten Holder then started the bidding at $35m; it climbed quickly to $40m, then slowing and moving up in $250,000 increments to a hammer price of $44m, to great applause from the huge crowd packed into the sale room.
It's thought that the new owner of the GTO is a major collector, based in the USA, with several other very famous cars in his collection. Just 36 examples of the GTO were built, all of which have survived, and the model is considered the most valuable car in the world.
1962 Ferrari 250 GTO
Weekend Box Office
'Crazy Rich Asians'
The opening weekend for "Crazy Rich Asians" was historic. Its second weekend was even more impressive.
The romantic comedy sensation slid just 6 percent from its chart-topping debut to again lead the box office with $25 million in ticket sales, according to studio estimates Sunday. Almost as many people turned out over the weekend for "Crazy Rich Asians" as they did for its opening Friday-to-Sunday bow - an unheard of hold for a non-holiday release. Drops of close to 50 percent are common for wide releases.
"The Happytime Murders," which cost approximately $40 million to make, came into the weekend with some of the worst reviews of the year (22 percent "fresh" on Rotten Tomatoes) despite the pedigree of the Jim Henson Company. Brian Henson, the chairman of the company and son of Jim Henson, directed the raunchy Los Angeles detective tale, a kind of "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" for puppets. It's the second straight disappointment for STX, which has also seen its Mark Wahlberg thriller "Mile 22" underperform. With $6 million in its second week, it has been thoroughly trounced by "Crazy Rich Asians,"
In limited release, the low-budget John Cho-starring thriller "Searching" landed a $28,000 per-screen average with $250,000 in nine theaters.
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. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.
1. "Crazy Rich Asians," $25 million ($6 million international).
2. "The Meg," $13 million ($32.7 million international).
3. "The Happytime Murders," $10 million ($1.2 million international).
4. "Mission: Impossible - Fallout," $8 million ($13 million international).
5. "Christopher Robin," $6.3 million ($5.9 million international).
6. "Mile 22," $6 million ($5.7 million international).
7. "Alpha," $5.6 million ($6.7 million international).
8. "BlacKkKlansman," $5.3 million ($5.6 million international).
9. "A.X.L.," $2.9 million.
10. "Slender Man," $2.8 million ($5.8 million international).
'Crazy Rich Asians'
In Memory
Neil Simon
Playwright Neil Simon, a master of comedy whose laugh-filled hits such as "The Odd Couple," ''Barefoot in the Park" and his "Brighton Beach" trilogy dominated Broadway for decades, has died. He was 91.
In the second half of the 20th century, Simon was the American theater's most successful and prolific playwright, often chronicling middle class issues and fears. Starting with "Come Blow Your Horn" in 1961 and continuing into the next century, he rarely stopped working on a new play or musical. His list of credits is staggering.
Even before he launched his theater career, he made history as one of the famed stable of writers for comedian Sid Caesar that also included Woody Allen, Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner.
Simon was the recipient of four Tony Awards, the Pulitzer Prize, the Kennedy Center honors (1995), four Writers Guild of America Awards and an American Comedy Awards Lifetime Achievement honor. In 1983, he had a Broadway theater named after him when the Alvin was rechristened the Neil Simon Theatre.
In 2006, he won the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, which honors work that draws from the American experience. The previous year had seen a popular revival of "The Odd Couple," reuniting Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick after their enormous success in "The Producers" several years earlier.
Simon was born Marvin Neil Simon in New York and was raised in the Bronx and Washington Heights. He was a Depression-era child, his father, Irving, a garment-industry salesman. He was raised mostly by his strong-willed mother, Mamie, and mentored by his older brother, Danny, who nicknamed his younger sibling, Doc.
Simon attended New York University and the University of Colorado. After serving in the military in 1945 and 1946, he began writing with his brother for radio in 1948, and then for television, a period in their lives chronicled in Simon's 1993 play, "Laughter on the 23rd Floor."
The brothers wrote for such classic 1950s television series as "Your Show of Shows," 90 minutes of live, original comedy starring Caesar and Imogene Coca, and later for "The Phil Silvers Show," in which the popular comedian portrayed the conniving Army Sgt. Ernie Bilko.
Yet Simon grew dissatisfied with television writing and the network restrictions that accompanied it. Out of his frustration came "Come Blow Your Horn," which starred Hal March and Warren Berlinger as two brothers (not unlike Danny and Neil Simon) trying to figure out what to do with their lives. The comedy ran for more than a year on Broadway. An audience member is said to have died on opening night.
Simon was married five times, twice to the same woman. His first wife, Joan Baim, died of cancer in 1973, after 20 years of marriage. They had two daughters, Ellen and Nancy, who survive him. Simon dealt with her death in "Chapter Two" (1977), telling the story of a widower who starts anew.
The playwright then married actress Marsha Mason, who had appeared in his stage comedy "The Good Doctor" and who went on to star in several films written by Simon including "The Goodbye Girl," ''The Cheap Detective," ''Chapter Two," ''Only When I Laugh" and "Max Dugan Returns." They divorced in 1982.
The playwright was married to his third wife, Diane Lander, twice - once in 1987-1988 and again in 1990-1998. Simon adopted Lander's daughter, Bryn, from a previous marriage. Simon married his fourth wife, actress Elaine Joyce, in 1999. He also is survived by three grandchildren and one great-grandson.
Neil Simon
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