Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Matthew Yglesias: Paul Ryan is leaving Congress in the most fitting way possible (Creators Syndicate)
He's doing what he does best: saying stuff about policy that's not true.
Lucy Mangan powerfully explains why pro-life activism is never about saving lives (Stylist)
I am glad at last to know where we stand. Because if you want to kill a person who terminates a pregnancy then it seems to me that we at last have proof of the lie at the heart of anti-choice activism: the idea that it has anything at all to do with being pro-life.
Greg Sargent: Trumpism is rotten to its core. And the stench of corruption and failure is everywhere. (Washington Post)
The revelations also suggest with fresh urgency that Trump may have been compromised. Former deputy solicitor general Neal Katyal told Chris Hayes that by concealing business dealings with Russia, Trump left himself vulnerable to blackmail. "The Russians have known that Trump lied to the American people for two years," Katyal said, which they could have used against Trump to "get their bidding done."
Paul Waldman: "Lies, lies and more lies: This is not how innocent people act" (Washington Post)
Imagine for a moment that President Trump is right when he claims there is, in fact, no Russia scandal - because the entire thing is a hoax, a fraud, a witch hunt - and that neither he nor any of his family members, employees, or associates did anything wrong. If that were the case, how would they all have conducted themselves as this controversy has gone on? There's one thing we should all be able to agree on: If they were all innocent, they would be telling the truth about what they did and didn't do. That's because the truth would exonerate them. What has happened, instead, is that one person after another, from the president on down, has lied about their actions, their contacts with Russia and the decisions they made.
Shannon Palus: Why Is It So Hard to Quit Amazon? Because Shopping Is Labor. (Slate)
Prime has helped overworked and underpaid Americans stretch their money and time. No wonder it's so hard to quit.
Cockburn: "What sells more books: Trump love or Trump hate?" (Spectator)
Now, Cockburn knows what you're thinking: taking a book recommendation from Donald Trump is akin to trusting a vegan's endorsement for the best BBQ joint in town, or getting sex tips from a nun. The President is an avowed non-reader: would anyone sign up for the Trump Book Club?
Elena Ferrante: 'Are great artists born or made? Both - but they must also get lucky' (The Guardian)
The poet has to have the gift of talent, but that alone is not enough.
Jonathan Jones: Why populists adore cats - and use them in their political propaganda (The Guardian)
Italy's rightwing deputy prime minister is using cat pictures to soften his anti-migrant posts on Facebook. This is no surprise. The whitewashed cats of the internet are pure phoneys.
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Presenting
Michael Egan
took the day off.
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
from Bruce
Anecdotes
• Avant garde composer John Cage once created a music piece titled 4'33" in which the pianist sat at a piano for exactly four minutes and 33 seconds without playing a note. The music consisted of the sounds that the audience heard while the pianist was not playing.
• At a recital, tenor Richard Lewis once gave an encore in which he sang the "Oliver Cromwell" song (folk text; set by Benjamin Britten). After singing the line - "If you want any more, you can sing it yourself" - he disappeared.
• In England, a song about Mae West was titled "If Those Hips Could Only Speak." When Ms. West heard about the song, she commented, "What do they mean 'if they could only speak'? I can make mine talk anytime."
• Niccolo Paganini was such a gifted violinist that after hearing him play, a professional musician by the name of Mori raised his own violin over his head and offered to sell it for only eighteen cents.
• Pop singer Jewel - Jewel Kilcher - was raised in Alaska on her family's 800-acre homestead. Wherever she travels, she carries a container filled with earth from her family's homestead.
• Oscar Levant was set to play the Brahms Concerto for the movie Humoresque, but the producer, Jerry Wald, asked him if he could cut the concerto from eight minutes to two. Mr. Levant replied, "Sure, I can do it - but you'll be hearing from Brahms in the morning."
• Blues singer Muddy Waters first heard his voice on a recording in the early 1940s. His impression of his voice was positive; afterward, he said, "I thought, man, this boy can sing the blues. And I was surprised because I didn't know I sang like that."
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© Copyright Bruce D. Bruce; All Rights Reserved
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Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
HELL ISN'T BAD ENOUGH FOR REPUBLICANS.
WE CAN'T WORK WITH REPUBLICANS.
HITLER RISES FROM HIS GRAVE!
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Dear old dad & the Babe decided to take advantage of the unseasonal 60° weather in NW PA, and drove up to Bradford for a meal at Perkins.
He had on his 'WW II Vet" cap and when he went to pay he was told that another gentleman had taken care of it and "thank you for your service".
Dad was blown away.
He said he wears the cap all the time, but nothing like that has ever happened to him.
Sure made his day (and then some).
South Africa
Global Citizen Festival
Beyonce led an all-star line-up including Ed Sheeran, Jay-Z and Usher in Johannesburg at a concert to honour the life and legacy of Nelson Mandela on Sunday.
The concert was the climax of a year of events celebrating the centennial of Mandela's birth in 1918, and part of a campaign to tackle poverty, child malnutrition and boost gender equality.
This year's Global Citizen Festival was held at Johannesburg's 94,736-capacity FNB staium and saw Beyonce perform several of her hits as well as a duet with Sheeran.
South African stars Trevor Noah, who was the host, and Bonang Matheba also made appearances, as the largely local crowd braved heavy downpours to attend.
Ahead of the concert co-host Oprah Winfrey hailed Mandela's "goodness and integrity", describing him as her "favourite mentor".
Global Citizen Festival
Charity Auction
Hugh Hefner
Hugh Hefner, the late founder of the Playboy media empire, had a number of personal items from his collection auctioned for charity over the weekend by Julien's Auctions.
The top-selling item was Hefner's vintage Underwood Standard Portable typewriter, which he used in college as well as for the publication of the first copy of Playboy magazine. The item sold for $162,500.
In addition to the typewriter, other top-selling items included Hefner's complete personal set of bound volumes of Playboy magazines from 1953-2013, which sold for $76,800; a 14K yellow gold ring with a black onyx plaque in the center which opens to reveal a compartment containing a Viagra pill, which went for $22,400; Hefner's custom leather Jeff Hamilton Los Angeles Lakers motorcycle jacket, which sold for $16,000; Hefner's 1980 "N.B.A. World Champions" Los Angeles Lakers ring, which sold for an incredible $53,125; Hefner's Hollywood Walk of Fame Star, which sold for $57,600; his 1998 Lincoln Town Car Executive Limousine, which sold for $44,800; his personal copy of the first issue of Playboy magazine from 1953 featuring Marilyn Monroe on the cover, which sold for $31,250; and a number of other personal collectible items, such as a coin-operated Wurlitzer jukebox and a portrait of Hefner painted by artist Bill Mack.
Notable Hollywood bidders in attendance included Pauly Shore and Jim Belushi, the latter of which won a leather-bound Saturday Night Live script from when Hefner hosted the show on October 15, 1977, during which time Belushi's brother, John, was a castmember. Belushi won the item for $3,125.
In addition to the personal collectible items, a number of other possessions from the Playboy Mansion were also auctioned, including a Brunswick pool table, a vintage Italian foosball table and a Playboy Club Executive Key.
Hugh Hefner
The Press
Sam Donaldson
Former ABC correspondent and host Sam Donaldson, who covered the White House going back to the 1960s, remembered George H.W. Bush as a president who was "accessible" and "understood" the role of a free press.
Donaldson told Brian Stelter on CNN's "Reliable Sources" Sunday that Bush, who died Friday at his home in Houston at the age of 94, sometimes challenged reporters but he was always respectful.
"I never heard of him calling a reporter to chew him out, never being angry at a reporter," he said. "He understood what we were about."
Donaldson expressed admiration for Marlin Fitzwater, who served as press secretary under Presidents Bush and Ronald Reagan.
Fitzwater would "slide around" questions "but he didn't try to insult reporters," Donaldson said.
Sam Donaldson
Cremated Remains
SpaceX Rocket
Before 36-year-old James Eberling died in November 2016, he told his parents he had one final wish: He wanted his remains to be sent into space.
Now Eberling's dream is about to be realized, as his and about 100 others' cremated remains are expected to be launched into space Monday in a memorial satellite by the company Elysium Space.
The San Francisco-based company said families paid about $2,500 to have a sample of their loved ones' ashes placed aboard the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
Traveling into space will be the remains of military veterans and aerospace enthusiasts, alongside those whose families were "looking to celebrate a loved one within the poetry of the starry sky," Elysium Space said in an emailed statement.
James' ashes and the others have been packed into a 4-inch square satellite called a cubesat, Elysium Space Founder and CEO Thomas Civeit explained to CNN. Families will be able to track the spacecraft in real-time through an app as it orbits the earth for about four years before it falls back to Earth, according to Civeit.
SpaceX Rocket
Suspended From Job
Medical Marijuana
A man battling non-Hodgkin lymphoma was allegedly suspended from work when his medical marijuana showed up on a drug test.
Craig Miller, from Illinois, was issued a medical marijuana card in June 2018. He was prescribed marijuana to combat the chronic pain and loss of appetite caused by the other medications he has to take. When marijuana showed up on a drug test at work, Miller's employer, Spartan Light Metal Products, suspended him and told him to "stop taking your medicine or lose your job," Miller wrote on a GoFundMe page he recently set up.
Miller was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a cancer in the lymphatic system, in 2015. When he started treatment he was 230 pounds. "At one point in my treatment my weight dropped below 180 lbs," Miller wrote. "I was prescribed Dronabinol (synthetic THC) to help with my appetite so I could put on weight. In Jan 2017 the HR department at work was informed in writing that I would show positive for THC on drug tests."
Unfortunately, the Dronabinol didn't do the trick, and that's when his doctor introduced him to medical marijuana. "I started taking my new medicine, and over the next few weeks I noticed a marked improvement," he wrote. "The biggest was that when I did the exercises given to me by a physical therapist actually started doing some good, the knot under my shoulder blade released, I was able to turn my head, and it didn't feel as if my arm was being ripped off, I also started regaining normal feeling in my right foot." Plus it helped with vision problems he'd developed before he was diagnosed. "For the first time in years things where starting to feel right."
He launched the GoFundMe page in the beginning of November to help raise funds to pay his mortgage and medical bills, since he doesn't know the status of his job. "I am in limbo. I do not know if I am still suspended, but I do know I am at the end on my financial rope," he explained. "The next mortgage payment will go unpaid."
Medical Marijuana
'Get Me Out Of Here'
G20 Summit
Donald Trump (R-Untethered) was recorded off camera saying "get me out of here" to an aide at the end of the G20 summit in Argentina, as he walked off stage even as other world leaders gathered for a photo.
The US president was also scheduled to pose for the final photos, as the meeting in Buenos Aires came to an end after a whirlwind two days.
But footage shows Mr Trump shaking hands with Mauricio Macri, the Argentinean president, before rapidly walking off stage.
Mr Macri, who stretched out a hand after him, appeared confused by the US leader's behaviour and was left alone in front of the photographers.
An aide then rushed across the stage after Mr Trump who, off camera, can be heard saying "Get me out of here."
G20 Summit
Ancient Ring
Pontius Pilate
Israeli researchers say an inscription on an ancient ring discovered near Jerusalem may include the name of Pontius Pilate, the Roman official who Biblical accounts say sentenced Jesus to death.
It would be a rare example still in existence of an inscription with the name of the man believed to have sent Jesus to his crucifixion.
The researchers recently announced their analysis of the inscription on the ring -- which was actually found some 50 years ago -- in Israel Exploration Journal.
The journal is published by the Israel Exploration Society and the Institute of Archaeology at Jerusalem's Hebrew University.
They say the copper-alloy ring, dated to around 2,000 years ago and used to apply a seal, was found at Herodium, an ancient palace built by King Herod near Jerusalem and Bethlehem, today located in the occupied West Bank.
Pontius Pilate
Ancient Hominins
Arabia
Ancient human relatives lived on the Arabian Peninsula for an astonishingly long time - from about 240,000 to 190,000 years ago - and spread into the heart of the region by following its blue rivers and lakes, a new study found.
These early human relatives persisted for so long that they could have run into some modern humans, or Homo sapiens, along the way, the researchers said in the study, published online yesterday (Nov. 29) in the journal Scientific Reports.
But the research team didn't make this discovery by studying piles of prehistoric bones. Rather, they traveled to Saudi Arabia to examine and date the stone hand axes that these ancient human relatives created.
In particular, the scientists looked at hand axes made by hominins, a group that includes humans, our ancestors and our close evolutionary cousins. "In other words, as a group, [hominins] postdate the split between the line that gave rise to our ancestors and the line that gave rise to the ancestors of chimps," said study lead researcher Eleanor Scerri, the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Germany.
Large, expertly shaped cutting tools (such as hand axes) made by hominins are known as Acheulean tools. These instruments - called the "the Swiss army knife of prehistory" - date to 1.5 million years ago; they come from the longest-lasting tool-making tradition in prehistory, Scerri said. Because it's rare to find hominin bones, Acheulean tools are a great stand-in for hominins when trying to figure out when and where they lived, the researchers said.
Arabia
Weekend Box Office
"Ralph Breaks the Internet"
On a typically sleepy post-Thanksgiving weekend in movie theaters, leftovers led the box office with Disney's "Ralph Breaks the Internet" repeating as No. 1 with $25.8 million in ticket sales, according to studio estimates Sunday.
The "Wreck-It Ralph" sequel dropped steeply (54 percent) after nearly setting a Thanksgiving record last weekend. But with only one new film in wide release, nothing came close to "Ralph Breaks the Internet," which sends John C. Reilly and Sarah Silverman's video-game characters into cyberspace. In 11 days of release, the $175 million film has cleared $207 million worldwide.
Still going strong in its fourth week of release, Universal's "The Grinch" came in second with $17.7 million in ticket sales. "The Grinch," the Illumination animated production with Benedict Cumberbatch as the Christmas curmudgeon, surpassed $200 million domestically and edged in front of last week's No. 2 film, the "Rocky" sequel "Creed II."
"Crazy Rich Asians," Warner Bros.' breakout summer hit, was a dud in China. Warner Bros. said the acclaimed romantic comedy, which earned $173 million domestically, debuted in China with just $1.2 million. John M. Chu's Singapore-set film, which opened Aug. 14 in the U.S., took months to secure a release date in China, a delay some have attributed to the film's depiction of extremely wealthy Chinese Singaporeans.
"Crazy Rich Asians" was a hit at the Singapore box office, but, like most comedies, it hasn't been as much a sensation abroad as it was in the U.S.; it's earned $64 million overseas. The film's performance in China, though, is potentially worrisome for Warner Bros. Its planned sequel, "China Rich Girlfriend," aims to better capitalize on the world's second largest film market.
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.
1. "Ralph Breaks the Internet," $25.8 million ($33.7 million international).
2. "The Grinch," $17.7 million ($27.1 million international).
3. "Creed II," $16.8 million ($10 million international).
4. "Fantastic Beasts: Crimes of Grindelwald," $11.2 million ($40.2 million international).
5. "Bohemian Rhapsody," $8.1 million ($37 million international).
6. "Instant Family," $7.2 million ($3.4 million international).
7. "Possession of Hannah Grace," $6.5 million ($4.1 million international).
8. "Robin Hood," $4.7 million ($15.1 million international).
9. "Widows," $4.4 million. ($5.5 million international).
10. "Green Book," $3.9 million.
"Ralph Breaks the Internet"
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