from Bruce
Anecdotes
Guns
• In his autobiography, Standing the Gaff, minor league umpire Harry “Steamboat” Johnson tells a story about umpiring a game in the Western League. It was the 9th inning, the bases were loaded, and a batter for the home team hit a high fly ball to left field. However, the cowboys in the crowd drew their guns and blasted the baseball to bits in the air before the visiting team’s left fielder could catch the ball and make the out. What call should an umpire make in that situation? According to Steamboat, “You don’t make calls like that against the home team!”
Heroes
• In June 2007 in Allanville, Camperdown, North Tyneside, England, 10-year-old David John “DJ” Amers knew what to do when his mother, Beverley, stopped breathing and fell unconscious. He called 999 (Great Britain’s emergency number), resuscitated her, and put her in the recovery position, all of which he had recently learned at his school. Beverley said, “I am so proud of DJ. He is my hero. He saved my life.” Beverley had recently banged her head on something and passed out; she suffered a concussion. DJ said, “I was talking to the next-door neighbor, and my mother had gone to the shop to get a birthday card for a friend. She came back from the shop and couldn’t speak. She was grabbing the fence and then she fell backwards. I quickly grabbed her things and rang 999 before giving her mouth to mouth and putting her in the recovery position.” DJ’s grandmother, Margaret Horrocks, said, “DJ came running around saying his mum had stopped breathing. I went after him but couldn’t keep up. It was very scary, but DJ did such a good job and so did the school. The week before this happened, DJ put his teacher in the same position. Bless DJ, he did so well and was so controlled. But it was uncanny, I can’t believe the school taught him in that short time some real-life skills. It is great that other children like DJ have these skills, so they can help in an emergency.” DJ attends Burradon Primary School. Its Headmaster, Alistair Gilfillan, said, “We are very proud of DJ. We have recently provided First Aid training by the Red Cross for our children. DJ has obviously learnt from what he saw. These are vital life skills that we think are important children acquire from an early age.” An ambulance service spokeswoman said, “It is very important that children of DJ’s age know how to dial 999 and deal with a situation like this. DJ was extremely calm and brave under the circumstances and dealt with the situation remarkably.”
• In February 2011 in Milwaukie, Oregon, 24-year-old Jeff Bryant caught an infant and saved its life. Mr. Bryant heard an alarm as he walking to his car with a cup of coffee in his hand, and he walked toward the alarm to see what was going on. He saw a second-story apartment on fire — from a window leaned a woman, holding an infant. Mr. Bryant dropped his coffee and ran until he was directly under the infant. He yelled to the woman, “Drop the baby!” She yelled back, “Will you catch him?” He yelled, “Yes!” She dropped the baby, and Mr. Bryant, as he had promised, caught it. He said, “It was like catching an egg.” He added, “He looked like he was sleeping. Just a baby in diapers.” Steve McAdoo, spokesman for the Clackamas Fire Department, said, “It was an extremely hot and fast-moving fire. It was so intense that it blocked the exits for those inside.” He praised Mr. Bryant: “It was fantastic. The woman was holding her baby out from the smoke and fire, and probably trying to figure out what to do. He stepped right up. I’ve never been around a case like this.” The woman jumped from the window a few seconds after Mr. Bryant made his dramatic catch. The woman told firefighters that two other children were inside the building, but unfortunately firefighters were unable to revive those children. Mr. Bryant’s wife called him a hero, but he is modest. He said, “To be honest. I just reacted. I didn’t have time to be nervous.” As a father of two young sons, he has had practice catching children. He said, “I play with them all the time by tossing them in the air. I know how to catch a child. I got the baby right under the armpits and then bent my knees to cushion the fall.” He added, “I’m a father. I did what any father would do.”
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***
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Presenting
Michael Egan
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
Dave
RE: Good Deeds
Hi Marty,
The second "Good Deeds" entry reminded me of this:
Leo Kottke & Emmylou Harris!
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION
BANDCAMP MUSIC
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION OF BANDCAMP MUSIC
Music: "I Already Forgot Everything You Said"
Album: MIDNIGHT FLOWERS
Artist: The Dig
Artist Location: New York, New York
Info:
Emile Mosseri - bass, vocals, guitar
David Baldwin - guitar, vocals, bass
Erick Eiser - keyboards, piano, guitar
Mark Demiglio - drums
Additional Instruments
Tony Vasceli - Trumpet on ‘Glass Horse’
Diana De Vito, a fan, wrote, “It's so peaceful and down to earth, harmonizing it's just amazing in general. The Dig got me threw a lot of bad times and I'm glad i found them. Favorite track: ‘I Already Forgot Everything You Said.’”
Ryan Alexander, a fan, wrote, “This album has that blues rock feel that just hits home so hard. ‘Hole in my Heart’ is a real meaningful song to me right now. Favorite track: ‘Hole In My Heart.’”
Price: $1 (USD) for track; $7 (USD) for 10-track album
Genre: Pop. Rock.
Links:
MIDNIGHT FLOWERS
The Dig on Bandcamp
The Dig on YouTube
The Dig (band) Wikipedia article
Other Links:
Bruce’s Music Recommendations: FREE pdfs
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 Apple iBookstore
David Bruce has over 140 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
New Venture
Michael Egan
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION
Recommended Video
A Song About Go-Karts and Masturbation - Garfunkel and Oates
Other Links:
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 Apple iBookstore
David Bruce has over 140 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
Reader Comment
Current Events
A quote for the end of 2021 and the start of 2022:
"Drop the last year into the silent limbo of the past. Let it go, for it was imperfect,and thank God that it can go."
— BROOKS ATKINSON
Linda >^..^<
We are all only temporarily able bodied.
Thanks, Linda!
that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Another rainy afternoon.
Weekend Box Office
‘Spider-Man’
Peter Parker’s good fortune continued over the holiday weekend as Hollywood prepares to close the books on a turbulent 2021. Even with some mighty competition from new Matrix and Sing movies, and rising concerns over the omicron variant, “Spider-Man: No Way Home” stayed in the No. 1 spot and netted a few more milestones too including crossing the $1 billion mark globally.
According to studio estimates Sunday “Spider-Man” added $81.5 million over the three-day weekend, down 69% from its first weekend. The Sony and Marvel film has now grossed $467 million from North American theaters, more than doubling the domestic grosses of 2021's previous No. 1 film, “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.”
Universal’s “Sing 2” came in second place with an estimated $23.8 million, while Warner Bros.' “The Matrix Resurrections” grossed $12 million to take third place.
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.
1. “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” $81.5 million.
2. “Sing 2,” $23.8 million.
3. “The Matrix Resurrections,” $12 million.
4. “The King’s Man,” $6.4 million.
5. “American Underdog,” $6.2 million.
6. “West Side Story,” $2.8 million.
7. “Licorice Pizza,” $2.3 million.
8. “A Journal For Jordan,” $2.2 million.
9. “Encanto,” $2 million.
10. “83,” $1.8 million.
‘Spider-Man’
Front-Page Apology
Meghan Markle
The Duchess of Sussex received a printed apology today from the publishers of Mail On Sunday after years-long legal battle.
The London High Court ordered the UK tabloid to print a front-page apology for breaching Meghan Markle’s privacy in February 2019 by printing parts of a five-page letter to her father after her wedding to Prince Harry in 2018.
The High Court forced The Mail On Sunday to print a longer notice inside the paper under the headline “The Duchess Of Sussex” detailing their legal culpability.
Additionally, the Court ordered the apology be printed on the MailOnline’s homepage “for a period of one week” with a hyperlink to the full, official judgment.
Alongside various printed apologies, Markle will also be compensated nearly $1.7 million, 90% of her legal fees fighting the UK publisher..
Meghan Markle
Painting Roils Catholic University
George Floyd
In the summer of 2020, shortly after the murder of George Floyd, Kelly Latimore, a white artist who grew up surrounded by images of a white Jesus, decided to make a course correction. He’d paint the Virgin Mary and Jesus with gold halos encircling their heads — and both would be Black.
Also, his image of Jesus would resemble Floyd, a Black man who had been killed by a white police officer in Minneapolis.
The painting, titled “Mama,” attracted little notice in February after a copy was installed at the law school of the Catholic University of America in Washington. But in November, The Daily Signal, a conservative website, published an article about the work and about the university’s recently published report on diversity and inclusion, and students created a petition calling for its removal. That month, the painting was stolen.
The university replaced it in November with a smaller copy — the school’s policy was “not to cancel speakers or prevent speech by members of the community,” the university’s president, John H. Garvey, said in a statement after the theft — but now that copy, too, has been stolen. And the student government has passed a resolution calling for further displays of the work on campus to be banned, citing religious objections.
The debate over whether a private institution has the right to display or remove work that some students find offensive is one that has rippled across the country in recent years. In 2019, students at Mary Baldwin University, a private liberal arts college in Staunton, Virginia, objected to an art exhibition in a university gallery that included Confederate imagery. The show was closed within 48 hours of its premiere. And earlier this year, a federal judge ruled that Vermont Law School could cover two murals that some students considered racist.
George Floyd
Maine Restoration
Edna St. Vincent Millay
The restoration of the Maine home that was the birthplace of Edna St. Vincent Millay, the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for poetry, will be completed in the new year.
Millay was born in an upstairs bedroom of the house in 1892 and remained there for the first six months of her life. She lived in several other homes in the area, but none have been preserved in her honor.
“Edna really belongs to Rockland and Union and Camden. Her early poetry is about the coast, about Maine. It’s very carefree and appealing poetry,” said Ann Morris, president of the Millay House Rockland Board of Directors. “This is the home that is being preserved in order to preserve her legacy.”
The restoration began five years ago. The duplex will have a year-round rental on one side and a writer-in-residence on the other side, the Bangor Daily News reported.
The building was slated for foreclosure when the Rockland Historical Society purchased it in 2016. Ownership of the home was transferred to Millay House Rockland when the non-profit organization formed in 2017.
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Curb Power Of Public Health Officials
States
At the entrance to the Lowe's in a central Ohio strip mall, a bright blue-and-white sign tells customers that, under local ordinances, they must wear a face covering inside. Next door, at Hale's Ales & Kitchen, a sign asks customers to please be patient with a staff shortage - with no mention of masks.
The city line between Columbus and suburban Hilliard crosses right through the strip mall, Mill Run Square. In Columbus, where the Lowe's Home Improvement Store lies, the city council early in the coronavirus pandemic created a mask requirement that remains in place. In Hilliard, where Hales is located, the city council has not imposed a mask rule, despite entreaties from the top county health official as coronavirus cases spiked.
Under a new law in Ohio - one of at least 19 states this year that have restricted state or local authorities from safeguarding public health amid the coronavirus pandemic - Franklin County's health commissioner Joe Mazzola can no longer intervene. The county health department was stripped of its power to compel people to wear masks even as the omicron variant fuels a fifth coronavirus surge in the United States.
The number of states that have passed laws similar to Ohio's is proliferating fast, from eight identified in one study in May to more than double that many as of last month, according to an analysis by Temple University's Center for Public Health Law Research. And around the country, many more measures are being debated or being prepared for legislative sessions to start early in the new year.
These laws - the work of Republican legislators - inhibit health officers' ability to require masks, promote vaccinations or take other steps, such as closing or limiting the number of patrons in restaurants, bars and other indoor public settings. Often, the measures shift those decisions from health experts to elected officials at a time when such coronavirus-fighting strategies have become politically radioactive.
States
'Magic' Weight-Loss Pills and COVID Cures
Under the Microscope
A wealth of evidence now shows that malaria drugs hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine were not effective at treating COVID-19 and carried potential risks.
But in the early months of the pandemic, Dr. Mehmet Oz (R-Duck), the celebrity physician with a daytime TV show, positioned himself as one of the chief promoters of the drugs on Fox News. In the same be-the-best-you tone that he used to promote miracle weight-loss cures on “The Dr. Oz Show,” he elevated limited studies that he said showed wondrous promise.
As Oz jumped last month into the Republican primary for Senate in Pennsylvania, where his celebrity gives him an important advantage in a crucial race, he tied his candidacy to the politics of the pandemic. He appealed to conservatives’ anger at mandates and shutdowns, and at the “people in charge” who, he said, “took away our freedom.”
But the entry into the race of the Cleveland-born heart surgeon, a son of Turkish immigrants who has been the host of “The Dr. Oz Show” since 2009, also brought renewed scrutiny to the blemishes on his record as one of America’s most famous doctors: his long history of dispensing dubious medical advice.
Over the years, Oz, 61, has faced a bipartisan scolding before a Senate committee over claims he made about weight-loss pills, as well as the opposition of some of his physician peers, including a group of 10 doctors who sought his firing from Columbia University’s medical faculty in 2015, arguing that he had “repeatedly shown disdain for science and for evidence-based medicine.” Oz questioned his critics’ motives, and Columbia took no action, saying it did not regulate faculty members’ participation in public discourse.
Under the Microscope
Shares The Love
Rep. Debbie Dingell
Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) shared an abusive voicemail with CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday during a segment on the hostile work environment in Congress.
“You ought to get the fuck off the planet, you fucking foul bitch,” an angry male caller barked. “They ought to fucking try you for treason, bitch. … I hope your family dies in front of you. I pray to God, if you’ve got any children, they die in your face.”
Dingell, who took office in Jan. 2019, said she has been receiving a steady flow of similar voicemails ever since then-President Trump (R-Lock Him Up) visited Michigan at Christmas time a few years ago, following the death of her husband Rep. John Dingell. Trump implied during a trip to Michigan in Dec. 2019 that the late Michigan lawmaker was “looking up” from hell.
“Once you’re in that Trump hate tunnel, you kind of don’t escape it,” Dingell said, adding that it’s something that she has grown accustomed to, yet shouldn’t be normalized. “I want the American people to think about what’s happening in our country,” she urged. “That this kind of hate, this fear, is happening in communities” all over.
Dingell appeared on State of the Union alongside Republican Rep. Fred Upton, who received a barrage of threatening messages after he voted in favor of the bipartisan infrastructure package in November. “I hope your fucking family dies. I hope everybody in your fucking staff dies, you fucking piece of fucking shit. Traitor!” an anonymous caller said in a message Upton shared with CNN at the time.
Rep. Debbie Dingell
West Africa
Twins
In her dreams, Eveline Zagre believes her two sets of twins share premonitions and make demands of her -- buy a chicken, beg for money.
Despite the burden of following their dream directives, Zagre considers herself doubly blessed. The 30-year-old mother of five is raising 3-year-old twin girls and 13-year-old twin boys in Burkina Faso – one of the West African countries where twins are revered for having special powers, like healing the sick, warding off danger, bringing financial prosperity and predicting the future.
The majority-Muslim country, with its strong cultural embrace of the supernatural, regards twins as the children of spirits, and the mothers of twins as specially picked to bear them. This deeply rooted perception stems from the days people could not scientifically explain how twins were conceived. In other parts of West Africa, twins are seen as a curse.
“People were afraid of twins because they couldn’t explain ... why these children were born two instead of one,” said Honorine Sawadogo, a sociologist at the government-run National Center for Scientific and Technological Research in Burkina Faso.
Parents of twins would turn to witch doctors who came up with rules they believed they must follow in order to keep their children and themselves safe, said Sawadogo, who did her doctoral research on the mothers of twins. These beliefs and practices persist today despite the established scientific explanation for how twins come into the world.
Twins
Animals
2021
Nature is beautiful — except when it's not. In fact, sometimes it's a little stomach-turning, or even downright horrific. In 2021, we saw plenty of examples that demonstrated just how gruesome nature could be. From sex-crazed zombies to tongue-gobbling parasites, here are some of the biggest gross-outs in science news this year.
Why would male flies mate with dead females? A fungus made them do it.
A type of fungus that affects house flies eats them from the inside out, consuming the flies' bodies after hijacking their brains and making them climb elevated surfaces to disperse fungal spores. Even after infected females have died, the fungus still has a use for the corpses. From inside each corpse, the fungus emits a scent that lures male flies and compels them to mate with the dead females, in order to distribute the fungal spores even more widely.
A rare and bizarre condition affecting a male deer in Tennessee caused a dense layer of hair to sprout from its eyeballs, leaving the corneas completely covered. Known as corneal dermoids, the growths were benign tumors made up of skin tissue containing hair follicles, and they likely formed early in the animal's development. As the deer grew, what would normally have been clear corneal tissue was instead covered by a layer of skin and hair, obscuring the animal's vision.
When scientists discovered a tiny, 50 million-year-old carpenter ant preserved in amber, they noticed that the ant's body contained a little something extra: tendrils of a parasitic fungus that culminated in a bulbous cap poking from the insect's posterior. The piece of amber came from the Baltic region, and DNA analysis revealed that the fungus was a previously unknown species, which the researchers named Allocordyceps baltica. Had the insect and fungus not been engulfed by sticky tree resin and locked in an amber tomb, the mushroom that stuck out of the ant's rear-end would have released spores as part of the fungus's reproductive cycle.
2021
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