Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Paul Gosar Is Not Working For You (YouTube)
Allegra Kirkland: 6 Siblings Of Arizona Rep. Gosar Skewer Him, Endorse Opponent In Campaign Ad (TPM)
It starts out like any other campaign ad. A rural physician named Grace blames Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) for failing to do "anything to help rural America." A lawyer named David claims Gosar is "absolutely not working for his district.' Jennifer, a medical interpreter, laments Gosar's failure to secure healthcare access for his constituents. Then comes the big, brutal reveal: all six of the people who appear in the ad are actually Gosar's siblings. They offer their full support for Democratic candidate Dr. David Brill, who ends the sixty-second clip with a cheery, "I endorse this message."
Jonathan Chait: GOP Bill 'Covers' Preexisting Conditions, But May Have Million-Dollar Premium (NY Mag)
[Republicans'] latest gesture at covering their weakness is a bill called the "Pre-existing Conditions Protection Act," which is gaining new Republican support in the run-up to the election. The bill would supposedly protect people with preexisting conditions from being denied coverage by preventing insurers from denying them coverage. The flaw with the bill is that it doesn't say what kind of coverage the insurers have to sell or at what price. McClatchy contacted numerous health-care experts to evaluate the "Pre-existing Conditions Protection Act," and they all consider the bill worthless. "They have to cover you, they can't exclude coverage of your preexisting condition or deny you coverage, but they can charge you a million a month, they can charge you a deterrent premium," explains Karen Pollitz, senior fellow at Kaiser Family Foundation.
Paul Waldman: Republicans stunned to learn voters understand exactly what their tax cut did (Washington Post)
So if you're going to pass a huge tax cut whose benefits go mostly to corporations and the wealthy, it would seem almost inevitable that it won't be popular. But Republicans were so convinced of the righteousness of their cause that they convinced themselves that the public would simply have to agree with them. Even though it didn't work out that way, don't think Republicans have any regrets. They knew that if they did nothing else in the first two years of Trump's presidency, they would cut taxes. Having accomplished that goal, many of them, like House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), are saying their work is done and leaving Congress.
William Saletan: People Are Out to Undermine President Trump (Slate)
As they should be.
Greg Sargent: Trump couldn't hold back about Christine Ford. There is no bottom. (Washington Post)
Trump's explicit questioning of Ford's credibility comes after Axios reported that people around Trump were shocked at how long he had refrained from this. One source who has been talking to Trump all along said that "you have no idea" how hard it has been to keep him quiet about Ford. One White House official said: "Hopefully he can keep it together until Monday. That's only, like, another 48 hours, right?" Nope, no such luck.
Hollywood stars join #WhyIDidntReport hashtag (Gulf News)
Ashley Judd, Alyssa Milano and Lili Reinhart explain why they kept quiet about being assaulted.
Lucy Mangan: "It's time we all dipped our toes into the rage pool" (Stylist)
Letting out our rage would benefit ourselves and other women, says Lucy Mangan.
Lucy Mangan: Maniac review - Jonah Hill and Emma Stone hit career highs in NYC dystopia (The Guardian)
Cary Fukunaga brings the bleakness of True Detective to Netflix's zany yet emotionally raw sci-fi extravaganza.
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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
• Richard Barthelemy, the voice coach and accompanist of Enrico Caruso, was aware that many opera patrons had little to no knowledge of opera. He was invited to lunch with one such high-society opera patron the day after a new Italian opera premiered. He asked her for her opinion of the opera, but she replied, "It's impossible to give you an opinion-I haven't yet read the reviews in the morning papers."
• In early 2008, Maxim magazine reviewed the album Warpaint by the Black Crowes, giving it a mediocre 2½ stars and saying that "it hasn't left Chris Robinson and the gang much room for growth." There was just one problem: The reviewer had not heard the album. Faced with a deadline, the reviewer had faked a review. Boo. Fortunately, Maxim was forced to apologize.
• Roger Ebert was the first critic to review a movie by Martin Scorsese: his student film titled Who's That Knocking on My Door? In his review, Mr. Ebert wrote, "In ten years, he'll be the American Fellini." Mr. Scorsese telephoned Mr. Ebert and asked him, "Geez, do you think it's gonna take that long?"
• Sylvia Miles did not suffer critics gladly. At a 1973 New York Film Festival party, she dumped a plate of spaghetti on caustic critic John Simon's head.
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Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
GET RID OF THIS SICK FUCK!
NOPE!
THE MUSHROOM CLOUD!
FINANCIAL CRASH.
FASCISM COMES TO AMERICA.
BRETT KAVANAUGH IS A FASCIST PERVERT!
DON'T WORRY ABOUT BRETT.
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Finally cooling off enough that I can use the oven again.
Drops Lawsuit
Ozzy Osbourne
Heavy metal legend Ozzy Osbourne dropped his lawsuit against live entertainment producers AEG on Friday, September 21, over its block-booking policy, according to Variety. The practice was actually part of a long-running turf war between AEG and rivals Azoff MSG Entertainment, and the singer's suit was designed to stand up for artists.
The lawsuit was originally filed in March after Ozzy's manager and wife, Sharon Osbourne, got upset while booking his farewell tour, No More Tours 2, after receiving contracts to sign that stated he could not play at London's O2 Arena if he didn't also play the Staples Center in Los Angeles.
Prior to filing the official suit, Sharon had written a letter to AEG in February that she shared with the press that stated artists should always come first and that "there's enough for everyone without [AEG] trying to monopolize the world of entertainment," reported Variety in a different piece.
AEG reportedly began its block-booking policy in July of 2017 after finding out that its main California competitor, Azoff MSG Entertainment, allegedly had a similar policy in place that required artists who wanted to play at Madison Square Garden in New York City to also perform at the Forum in L.A., which the chairman and CEO of Azoff MSG Entertainment, Irving Azoff, has denied.
However, once AEG canceled the block-booking policy regarding the O2 Arena and the Staples Center last week, there was no need for Ozzy's lawsuit to continue.
Ozzy Osbourne
NYT Lawsuit
Net Neutrality
The Federal Communications Commission has obstinately hidden information concerning its system for gathering public input about its unpopular plan to kill net neutrality amid signs of Russian manipulation of the comment procedure, according to a New York Times lawsuit.
Freedom of Information Act requests by the newspaper concerning the comment system were turned down repeatedly by the FCC as the Times attempted to investigate possible influence by Russia after huge numbers of comments were linked to Russian emails.
Stonewalling by the FCC has made the American public the "victim of an orchestrated campaign by the Russians to corrupt the notice-and-comment process and undermine an important step in the democratic process of rule-making," states the Times' lawsuit, which was filed Thursday in U.S.District Court in the Southern District of New York.
The agency also ignored similar demands - at least nine times - from the New York attorney general last year as that office investigated millions of suspicious comments.
The FCC's bungled comment procedure has long been the target of criticism. As many as 2 million comments were fraudulently submitted in other people's names without their knowledge, and the system was overrun with bots, a favorite tool of the Russians. The system also crashed for a period of time as the FCC was overwhelmed by a massive number of comments supporting net neutrality.
Net Neutrality
Captured On Film
Noctilucent Clouds
A balloon launched by Nasa travelling across the Arctic has captured images of rare blue clouds formed by ice crystals interacting with shards of broken meteors.
Known as noctilucent clouds or polar mesospheric clouds (PMCs), a better understanding of these unusual phenomena will help scientists understand turbulence in the atmosphere - and could even play a role in weather forecasting.
The clouds are visible shortly after the sun sets in polar regions during the summer, as ice forms around meteor remnants in the upper atmosphere.
The balloon used in the mission floated through the stratosphere for five days, and cameras on board captured six million high-resolution images.
So-called atmospheric gravity waves, caused by masses of air being pushed up when they meet obstacles like mountain ranges, also play a role in the clouds' appearance.
Noctilucent Clouds
Court Lifts Ban
Nairobi
Rafiki, an acclaimed film portraying a lesbian romance that was until Friday banned in Kenya where it was made, showed on Sunday to a cheering, sold-out audience in Nairobi.
Nairobi residents will be able to watch Rafiki during daytime-only screenings at the Prestige Cinema in the capital for a week after a judge on Friday temporarily lifted a ban on the film, making it eligible to be entered for a Foreign Language Oscar. Rafiki means "friend" in the Swahili language.
To qualify as Kenya's entry under the Best Foreign Language Film category at the 2019 Academy Awards, Rafiki had to be released in the East African country.
The court ruling delighted the filmmakers but angered the Kenya Film Classification Board, which banned the movie in April on the grounds that it promotes homosexuality, which is a criminal offence under a colonial-era law.
In May, Rafiki premiered at Cannes, the first Kenyan film to be selected by the prestigious festival. Critics hailed it a "sweet" romance about two young women who live in the same Nairobi housing estate.
Nairobi
Which Nation Is 'Most Generous'
Refugees
When secretary of state Mike Pompeo announced a few days ago that the Trump administration had set a ceiling of 30,000 refugees who could be resettled in the United States in the next year beginning 1 October, he ritually added: "We are and continue to be the most generous nation in the world."
Not quite. Our neighbor to the north, Canada, has a population slightly more than one-tenth that of the United States - and an economy slightly less than one-tenth the size. Like the United States, Canada carefully screens applicants for admission as refugees and has had great success in integrating them into Canadian society. Canada is now taking in 27,000 refugees a year. To match Canada, the United States would have to accept about 250,000 refugees a year.
Many countries that are much closer to the places from which refugees are fleeing, and that do not have the luxury of having their consular services engage in rigorous, time consuming admissions processes, give refuge to vastly great numbers. Turkey has accommodated about 3.5 million Syrian refugees since 2011; and Lebanon and Jordan have taken in even larger numbers in proportion to their population.
Several Latin American countries are now taking in hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans fleeing repression and starvation. Impoverished Bangladesh is sheltering about 700,000 Rohingya who have fled genocidal violence in Myanmar during the past year. Though it has come at a high political cost for their governing coalitions, Sweden and Germany have led the way among western countries in recent years in demonstrating generosity to refugees.
Pompeo tried to bolster his case for American generosity by pointing out that the United States would also process some 280,000 asylum applications in the next year. He failed to mention, however, that the great majority of these would be denied. In recent years, the number of asylum applications in the United States that succeeded has been roughly between 20,000 and 25,000. That number is likely to go down.
Refugees
Catholic Church Pledges Loyalty
China
China's Catholic Church reaffirmed its loyalty to the country's ruling Communist Party on Sunday, while welcoming a landmark deal struck with the Vatican on appointing new bishops.
The Vatican on Saturday signed an agreement giving it a long-desired and decisive say in the appointment of bishops in China, though critics labeled it a sellout to the government.
China's around 12 million Catholics have been split between an underground Church swearing loyalty to the Vatican and the state-supervised Catholic Patriotic Association.
The Catholic Church in China said it would "persevere to walk a path suited to a socialist society, under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party."
The Vatican has said the accord, a breakthrough after years of negotiations, was "not political but pastoral", and hoped it would lead to "the full communion of all Chinese Catholics."
China
Newly Discovered
Neuron Circuit
The human gut is lined with more than 100 million nerve cells-it's practically a brain unto itself. And indeed, the gut actually talks to the brain, releasing hormones into the bloodstream that, over the course of about 10 minutes, tell us how hungry it is, or that we shouldn't have eaten an entire pizza. But a new study reveals the gut has a much more direct connection to the brain through a neural circuit that allows it to transmit signals in mere seconds. The findings could lead to new treatments for obesity, eating disorders, and even depression and autism-all of which have been linked to a malfunctioning gut.
The study reveals "a new set of pathways that use gut cells to rapidly communicate with … the brain stem," says Daniel Drucker, a clinician-scientist who studies gut disorders at the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute in Toronto, Canada, who was not involved with the work. Although many questions remain before the clinical implications become clear, he says, "This is a cool new piece of the puzzle."
In 2010, neuroscientist Diego Bohórquez of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, made a startling discovery while looking through his electron microscope. Enteroendocrine cells, which stud the lining of the gut and produce hormones that spur digestion and suppress hunger, had footlike protrusions that resemble the synapses neurons use to communicate with each other. Bohórquez knew the enteroendocrine cells could send hormonal messages to the central nervous system, but he also wondered whether they could "talk" to the brain using electrical signals, the way that neurons do. If so, they would have to send the signals through the vagus nerve, which travels from the gut to the brain stem.
In a petri dish, enteroendocrine cells reached out to vagal neurons and formed synaptic connections with each other. The cells even gushed out glutamate, a neurotransmitter involved in smell and taste, which the vagal neurons picked up on within 100 milliseconds-faster than an eyeblink.
That's much faster than hormones can travel from the gut to the brain through the bloodstream, Bohórquez says. Hormones' sluggishness may be responsible for the failures of many appetite suppressants that target them, he says. The next step is to study whether this gut-brain signaling provides the brain with important information about the nutrients and caloric value of the food we eat, he says.
Neuron Circuit
Spam Spam Spam
S. Korea
From the front lines of war to a staple of institutional catering, Spam is rarely seen as a gourmet ingredient -- but the canned pink meat holds a unique position in South Korea as a top-selling holiday gift.
Ahead of the Chuseok harvest festival which starts Sunday -- one of Korea's biggest celebrations and an occasion for mass family gatherings -- presentation wooden boxes of the blue-and-yellow tins, nestled in packing straw, line the shelves of both major retailers and local convenience stores.
An upmarket black-label pack with six cans of Spam and two bottles of Andalusian olive oil costs over 90,000 won ($80), but the most popular version is a nine-tin set at 30,000 won.
Around 213 billion won worth of Spam gift boxes were sold in South Korea last year -- six times as much as in 2008, when the figure was first recorded.
It is now the second biggest consumer of Spam after the United States, according to Hormel Foods, despite having a population less than a sixth of the size.
S. Korea
Weekend Box Office
'House With a Clock in Its Walls'
The gothic family fantasy "The House With a Clock in Its Walls" exceeded expectations to debut with an estimated $26.9 million in ticket sales at the weekend box office, while audiences showed considerably less interest in Michael Moore's Donald Trump-themed documentary, "Fahrenheit 11/9," than his George W. Bush-era one.
"Fahrenheit 11/9" opened with $3.1 million in 1,719 cinemas - a huge debut for most documentaries but a fraction of the $23.9 million opening generated in 2004 by Moore's record-breaking "Fahrenheit 9/11." That film went on to make $222.4 million worldwide, a record for documentaries.
Dan Fogelman's "Life Itself" and the home invasion thriller "Assassination Nation" both barely made a blip in nationwide release. Though Fogelman's "This Is Us" is one of TV's top-rated series, his "Life Itself" bombed with $2.1 million despite a starry cast including Olivia Wilde, Oscar Isaac and Antonio Banderas.
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 also are included. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.
1. "The House With a Clock in Its Walls," $26.9 million ($8.7 million international).
2. "A Simple Favor," $10.4 million ($5.2 million international).
3. "The Nun," $10.3 million ($35.4 million international).
4. "The Predator," $8.7 million ($15.2 million international).
5. "Crazy Rich Asians," $6.5 million ($5.1 million international).
6. "White Boy Rick," $5 million.
7. "Peppermint," $3.7 million ($1.6 million international).
8. "Fahrenheit 11/9," $3.1 million.
9. "The Meg," $2.4 million ($3.4 million international).
10. "Searching," $2.2 million ($3.6 million international).
'House With a Clock in Its Walls'
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