Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Paul Waldman: Should Democrats move to the center, or to the left? Yes! (Washington Post)
… the real answer to "Should Democrats run to the center or to the left?" is: It depends. Every district and every state is different, and what's really important to understand is that it isn't just about finding where each district or state lies on a line from most liberal to most conservative. The most important question to ask may be this: Just how many liberal voters are out there to mobilize? If the answer turns out to be that there are quite a few, running as a progressive even in a place with lots of conservatives may be the best strategy.
Matthew Yglesias: Trump voters stood by Trump in the midterms - but there just aren't enough of them (Vox)
Time to stop with the endless diner visits.
Helaine Olen: An aggressive agenda for a Democratic House (Washington Post)
Expanded voter rights, including automatic voter registration and redistricting reform. A higher minimum wage (CAP says up to $15 over a seven-year period). The return of Obama-era rules on overtime pay, which would have resulted in more than larger paychecks for an estimated 4.2 million people. The end of right-to-work laws. Institution-paid family leave; passage of the Childcare for Working Families Act, which would offer assistance to low- and middle-income families aid with child-care costs, limit the amount families spend on child care to 7 percent of their income, and boost the pay of child-care workers. New gun-control legislation, including an assault weapons ban and universal background checks. Criminal-justice reform. New legislation to codify equal rights for the LGBTQ community. Granting "dreamers" a way to gain citizenship.
Paul Waldman: GOP voter suppression continues, yet Democrats won big anyway (Washington Post)
We seem to see the same pattern over and over again: A race is extremely close, Democrats demand that every vote be counted, and Republicans, having spent the time leading up to the election putting up as many hurdles as possible to voting, particularly among minority groups, try to shut down the counting before all the votes can be counted.
Paul Krugman: "What the Hell Happened to Brazil? (Wonkish)" (The Guardian)
How did an up-and-coming economy suffer such a severe slump?
Lucy Mangan: "Wearing make-up should always be a choice, not a trap" (Stylist)
Make-up should only be used in the service of the one on whose face it sits. I mean, don't be a d*ck - if 13 layers of Ruby Woo really upsets your granny just wipe it? off when you visit. But all other domestic non-granny, professional, public and private times make sure you paint your lovely face - or don't - on your terms only. That's the foundation (Bobbi Brown's Cool Ivory Stick for me, BTW) upon which all the rest should be built.
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 Lulu Storefront
David Bruce's Apple iBookstore
David Bruce has over 100 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
Presenting
Michael Egan
answered:
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
from Bruce
Anecdotes
• Journalist and author Andrew Mueller takes spelling, punctuation, and grammar seriously. He once discovered that a possible romantic companion did not know-or care-about the difference between your and you're. She ceased to be a possible romantic companion for him. He once shouted an obscenity at people whose stall had a sign for toiletrie's. And he routinely went four blocks out of his way to purchase groceries because the store across the street had a sign for tomatoe's. All of us can applaud Mr. Mueller's campaign for correct spelling, punctuation, and grammar. (Oh, wait. He's a Brit-his book I Wouldn't Start From Here: The 21st Century and Where It All Went Wrong is published in Britain-who wants Americans to use the spelling neighbours. In the opinion of this American writer, that makes him a radical who has gone too far.)
• Colin Hay, front man for the Australian group Men at Work (and currently a solo artist), used to be multilingual: He can speak English with a Scottish accent. And he used to be able to speak English with an Australian accent. He was born and raised in Scotland, but when he was a teenager, his family moved to Australia. Mr. Hays says, "I used to have two accents. There's the Scottish accent I've always had. But I developed an Australian accent just to assimilate. I would talk Australian out on the street, and at home with my parents, I would speak Scottish."
• Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, who is Danish, starred as an immortal New York police officer in Fox's TV series New Amsterdam. He is multilingual and has acted using many languages, but of course he does not have equal facility in all of the languages he speaks. For example, his French can be lacking. Mr. Coster-Waldau remembers one particular movie: "The script was in French, and I learned all my lines. I was working with this actress who was great, but she wanted to improvise. All I could do is look at her with great depth in my eyes."
• Actor Will Smith started out as a well-respected Philadelphia rapper. He wrote his own lyrics, and sometimes he used profanity in those lyrics. However, one day his grandmother read a page of lyrics he had written, and across the top of the page she wrote, "Dear Willard, intelligent people do not use these words to express themselves." After that experience, he wrote lyrics without swear words.
• When the triangular Fuller Building, aka the Flatiron Building, was built in New York in 1902, it created an occasional breeze on Twenty-Third Street that was enough to raise ladies' skirts and reveal an ankle or two-something of interest to many men. Occasionally, police officers would have to tell gawking men, "Twenty-three skidoo," a phrase that means, "Get away from Twenty-third Street."
• When Fay Kanin started writing for the movies, she told her boss, Sam Marx, the story editor at MGM, "Mr. Marx, I know you own Gone with the Wind. I've read it, and I would be a wonderful writer for it." He smiled at her brashness and said, "I think they have in mind a more expensive writer for it." Ms. Kanin always appreciated that he used the word "expensive" instead of the word "talented."
• The term "Jim Crow" had its origin when Thomas "Daddy" Rice, a white man who wore blackface and played an African-American in minstrel shows, saw a black boy in ragged clothing singing "Jump, Jim Crow." Mr. Rice copied the boy's movements and used them in minstrel shows, and after a while "Jim Crow" began to be used to denote legal segregation between whites and blacks.
***
© Copyright Bruce D. Bruce; All Rights Reserved
***
Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
Reader Comment
Current Events
He's so f'ing lame
Speaking in France to recognize the fallen heroes of World War I at the Suresnes cemetery a day after he skipped - because of the rain- a commemorative event attended by other world leaders, Trump complained that the veterans, who sat underneath a tent to stay dry, looked comfortable while we are "drenched."
A mere ten minutes later, at 4:25 p.m., Trump left en route to the airport. This is the kind of crack presidenting we can expect from the McDonalds and Fox and Friends president.
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
PYRONADO!
"ME TOO".
THE DAY THE EVIL DIED!
DECLAWING THE MONSTER!
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Yep. Running late.
California Wildfires
Neil Young
Like many other Californians, Neil Young has lost his home to the wildfires currently ravaging the state.
In a post to his website, the legendary rocker revealed that his home in Malibu was burned down over the weekend. Never one to mince words, Young proceeded to take his anger out on Donald Trump over a tweet Trump made blaming California for the ongoing crisis.
"California is vulnerable - not because of poor forest management as DT (our so-called president) would have us think. As a matter of fact this is not a forest fire that rages on as I write this," Young wrote. "We are vulnerable because of Climate Change; the extreme weather events and our extended drought is part of it."
"Our temperatures are higher than ever here in our hottest summer on record. That has not helped," he added. "DT seems to be the Denier. (I'm holding back and not using the word liar because it rhymes with denier). It really is time for a reckoning with this unfit leader. Maybe our new congress can help. I sure hope so."
To conclude his comments, Young posed the following: "Imagine a leader who defies science, saying these solutions shouldn't be part of his decision-making on our behalf. Imagine a leader who cares more for his own, convenient opinion than he does for the people he leads. Imagine an unfit leader. Now imagine a fit one."
Neil Young
In The Rain
Obama
Critics were stunned that President-for-now Donald Trump (R-Grabby Grifter) skipped a visit Saturday to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery in France - where U.S. war dead were being honored - because of rain. They zapped him with a a series of tweets showing Barack Obama in downpours honoring those who fought in wars in what was bound to be particularly galling to the president.
As many as 1,800 American soldiers killed in the World War I battle of Belleau Wood are buried in the French cemetery. But Trump ditched his planned visit and stayed in his hotel room because of unspecified "scheduling and logistical difficulties caused by the weather," according to a White House statement. Instead, a delegation led by Chief of Staff John Kelly traveled to the cemetery 50 miles outside of Paris by car. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron were among the world leaders who made the trip.
Winston Churchill's grandson Nicholas Soames, a member of the British Parliament, blasted Trump as "pathetic" and "inadequate" for failing to show up.
Twitter responded with scads of photos of Obama campaigning or speaking at various events in the rain. A number of them featured the former president in pelting rain honoring veterans or those killed in battle.
Obama
Topless Protesters
Femen
A feminist activist pretending to be a photographer managed to breach security at a huge international ceremony in Paris and disrupt U.S. Presidential Donald Trump's motorcade as part of a peace protest.< /p>
With thousands of security forces deployed around the French capital, questions swirled around how the woman and two other activists from feminist group Femen got so close to scores of world leaders gathered on the Champs-Elysees to mark 100 years since the end of World War I.
Photographers accredited by the French presidential palace noticed that a woman in their midst was using a fake identity, according to Ludovic Marin, an Agence France Presse photographer who heads the media liaison committee with the French presidential palace.
The photographers alerted French presidential officials as well as police, and the woman was led away, Marin said. However, soon afterward she dashed out onto the Champs-Elysees in front of Trump's motorcade, shouting "fake peace maker."
At that point, she was detained along with two other Femen protesters in the crowds of onlookers along the Champs-Elysees. All three had "fake peace makers" scrawled across their breasts, according to Inna Shevchenko, one of Femen's leaders.
Femen
Nurses, Surgeons Fire Back
'#ThisIsMyLane'
Just days after a single gunman took the lives of 12 at a bar in Thousand Oaks, Calif., the National Rifle Association sent an angry tweet Thursday suggesting that the medical community stay out of the gun debate. "Someone should tell self-important anti-gun doctors to stay in their lane. Half of the articles in Annals of Internal Medicine are pushing for gun control," wrote the NRA. "Most upsetting, however, the medical community seems to have consulted NO ONE but themselves."
On Saturday, nurses, doctors, and emergency medical services who have spent years trying to save the lives of gun violence victims launched a viral campaign in response: "#ThisIsMyLane."
"Hey @NRA, have you ever had to look a mother in the eye and tell her, 'I'm sorry, we did everything we could, but your child died' after they were shot? Because I have," tweeted Elizabeth Laverriere, MD, of Johns Hopkins University. "Preventing gun violence is completely in my lane. No one should EVER hear that. #PedsICU #PedsAnes #thisismylane
While some shared photos of blood-strewn trauma rooms, others talked about the dreaded moment they have to share with a parent or family member that their loved one didn't make it. "Hey @NRA ! Wanna see my lane? Here's the chair I sit in when I tell parents their kids are dead," wrote Stephanie Bonne, MD, a truama surgeon in New Jersey. "How dare you tell me I can't research evidence based solutions. #ThisISMyLane #ThisIsOurLane #thequietroom"
More than 36,000 Americans were killed as a result of guns in 2015, the most recent year for which Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has data. According to Everytown for Gun Safety, 96 Americans are killed per day as the result of gun violence, and hundreds more are injured.
'#ThisIsMyLane'
GI Bill Benefits
Veterans
Shelley Roundtree departed the U.S. Army in 2013 after seeing friends and fellow soldiers die in combat during his tour in Afghanistan. He was committed to transitioning to civilian life, and one of his first steps was to enroll in college with tuition and housing benefits he'd earned under the GI Bill.
Roundtree, 29, began studying marketing at Berkeley College in Midtown Manhattan. He dreams of working in the fashion industry, and he's close to graduating - but now there's a serious obstacle.
The Department of Veterans Affairs is suffering from a series of information technology glitches that has caused GI Bill benefit payments covering education and housing to be delayed or - in the case of Roundtree - never be delivered.
Without the GI Bill's housing stipend, Roundtree was kicked out of his apartment and is now living on his sister's couch, miles from school, where he feels like a burden on his family. The new living situation required him to move all his belongings into a storage container, which he can no longer afford. Now all of his possessions are in danger of being auctioned off by the storage facility.
While it is unclear how many GI Bill recipients were impacted by the delays, as of Nov. 8, more than 82,000 are still waiting for their housing payments with only weeks remaining in the school semester, according to the VA. Hundreds of thousands are believed to have been affected.
Veterans
$25.5 Million 'Statement'
Aetna
An Oklahoma jury has awarded $25.5 million to the family of a cancer patient denied coverage by Aetna, with jurors saying that the insurer acted "recklessly" and that the verdict was meant as a message for Aetna to change its ways.
The award is believed to be the largest verdict in an individual "bad faith" insurance case in Oklahoma history, one court observer said, and could have major ramifications across the country for a form of cancer treatment called proton beam therapy.
The case revolved around the 2014 denial of coverage for Orrana Cunningham, who had stage 4 nasopharyngeal cancer near her brain stem. Her doctors wanted her to receive proton beam therapy, a targeted form of radiation that could pinpoint her tumor without the potential for blindness or other side effects of standard radiation.
Aetna denied her coverage, calling the therapy investigational and experimental.
When the jury said Aetna "recklessly disregarded" Orrana's case, Ron Cunningham said, he finally felt justice.
Aetna
Fire Tweet Infuriates
California
A raft of Hollywood stars took to social media on Saturday to rip into President-for-now Donald Trump (R-Yeti Pubes) for a pre-dawn tweet on Saturday in which he blamed "gross mismanagement of the forests" in California for a trio of deadly wildfires blazing across the state, and threatened to withhold vital federal funding to fight the infernos.
Katy Perry, Ava DuVernay, Don Cheadle, Sarah Silverman, Andy Lassner, Kathy Griffin, Zach Braff, Bette Midler, Alyssa Milano, Maria Shriver and Billy Eichner were among the celebrities who castigated the U.S. president for his tweet.
"Stop it," Silverman tweeted in response. "Feign humanity."
"Honestly thought this one was from a parody account," Braff wrote. "The city is on fire and people and animals are dying."
Cheadle was succinct in his response. "you suck at this…" he wrote.
California
Massive Hoard Of Mummified Cats
Egyptian Tombs
Dozens of cat mummies and a rare collection of mummified scarab beetles have been unearthed in seven ancient Egyptian tombs south of Cairo, according to local archaeologists.
While preparing the site at the ancient necropolis of Saqqara, the team also came across the door of another tomb that remains sealed.
Mostafa Waziri, secretary-general of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, said the intact door suggests the contents inside are likely untouched, and experts plan to open the door in coming weeks.
The tomb is thought to date back to the Fifth Dynasty of the Old Kingdom, which ruled Egypt from about 2,500 BC to 2,350 BC, not long after the great pyramid of Giza was built.
Saqqara is thought to have served as the necropolis for Memphis, the capital of ancient Egypt for more than two millennia.
Egyptian Tombs
'Dr. Seuss' The Grinch'
"Dr. Seuss' The Grinch" sledded past mixed reviews and made off with $66 million for Universal Pictures to top the weekend North American box office, according to studio estimates Sunday.
Last week's top film, the Queen biopic "Bohemian Rhapsody," drops to second for 20th Century Fox with a $30.8 million weekend that brings its overall take to $100 million.
Illumination, the Universal-owned animators behind "The Minions" and "Despicable Me," produced the latest interpretation of Seuss' 1957 book that led to a 1966 TV special and first came to the big screen as a live-action feature starring Jim Carrey in 2000.
Paramount Pictures' war-horror hybrid "Overlord" was third in its first weekend with $10.1 million. Disney's "The Nutcracker and the Four Realms" brought in $9.5 million and finished fourth in its second week. The weekend's other major debut, "The Girl in the Spider's Web," made just $8 million and finished fifth.
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. "Dr Seuss' The Grinch," $66 million.
2. "Bohemian Rhapsody," $30.8 million.
3. "Overlord," $10.1 million.
4. "The Nutcracker and the Four Realms," $9.5 million.
5. "The Girl in the Spider's Web," $8 million.
6. "A Star Is Born," $8 million.
7. "Nobody's Fool," $6.5 million.
8. "Venom," $4.8 million.
9. "Halloween," $3.8 million.
10. "The Hate U Give," $2 million.
'Dr. Seuss' The Grinch'
In Memory
Douglas Rain
Douglas Rain, the iconic voice behind the haunting HAL 9000 computer in Stanley Kubrick's 2001: a space odyssey, has passed away at the age of 90.
According to the Stratford Festival, which Rain co-founded in 1952 and performed at for over 45 years as a longtime Shakespearian thespian, the actor died of natural causes at St. Marys Memorial Hospital in St. Marys, Ontario.
Born in Winnipeg, Manitoba in 1928, Rain went on to study acting at the Banff School of Fine Arts in Banff, Alberta and the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School in Bristol, England. Largely a theater actor, Rain starred in a Stratford production of Henry V, which was adapted for television in 1966, and nabbed a Tony nomination for his performance in Vivat! Vivat Regina!.
In addition to his vocal performance in 2001, a role he revisited 16 years later for its sequel 2010, Rain's voice was also featured in Woody Allen's tongue-in-cheek sci-fi comedy Sleeper, and documentaries such as Fields of Sacrifice, The Man Who Skied Down Everest, One Canadian: The Political Memoirs of the Rt. Hon. John G. Diefenbaker, and The Russian-German War.
Douglas Rain
| CURRENT MOON lunar phases |
