from Bruce
Anecdotes
Illnesses and Injuries
• Major league umpire Bill Klem wore an inside chest protector, which afforded less protection than an outside chest protector, although Mr. Klem maintained that umpires could avoid injury by weaving with the ball. Even so, he once had his collarbone broken while umpiring. It healed, but it left a hole that you could stick your finger in. Later, fellow umpire Jocko Conlan had his collarbone broken while working a game. Mr. Klem told him, “You’ve got to weave.” Mr. Conlan had roomed with Mr. Klem, and so he knew where the hole left by Mr. Klem’s broken collarbone was located. He stuck his finger in the hole and said, “How did you get that?” Mr. Klem replied, “I didn’t weave either, that day.”
• During Prohibition, medicinal alcohol was still legal. Workers in the Chrysler plant near Highland Park, Michigan, used to go to a certain doctor and tell him that they were suffering from “shaky nerves.” The doctor knew exactly what would calm their nerves — he would immediately write out a prescription for a pint of whiskey. A drugstore located one floor below the doctor’s office filled the prescription.
• Strange, unusual, and true: A career in opera can end quickly. French mezzo Simone Berriaux once choked on a peppercorn while eating a beefsteak. Although she coughed repeatedly, she could not dislodge the peppercorn from beside her vocal cords. The next morning a surgeon removed the peppercorn, but it had damaged her vocal cords so badly that she was forced to retire from opera.
• While umpiring a Pittsburgh Pirates game, Ken Burkhart saw a woman fan being carried out on a stretcher, so he asked the Pirates third-base coach, “What happened to her?” The third-base coach replied, “You called one right, and she fainted.”
Language
• After Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, it was sent to the Continental Congress to be debated. Members of the Congress made many suggestions concerning changes they wanted made to the wording. Benjamin Franklin could see that Mr. Jefferson did not like many of the suggested changes, although he sat quietly, so Mr. Franklin told a story about a hatter named John Thompson, who decided to open a store and sell hats. Mr. Thompson wrote down his idea for a sign he wanted to have made, but he asked his friends to look over the wording first to ensure that it was suitable. The wording said: “John Thompson, Hatter, makes and sells hats for ready money.” In addition, Mr. Thompson drew a picture of a hat. The first friend suggested that the word “Hatter” be deleted, because the sign already said “makes and sells hats.” The next friend suggested deleting “makes and,” because as long as the hats were well made, no one would care who made them. Another friend suggested deleting “for ready money,” since in those days before credit cards, people customarily paid cash. Yet another friend suggested deleting “sells hats,” since no one expected him to give away the hats. After all these suggestions were taken into account, the only things that remained to the sign were the name “John Thompson” and the picture of a hat. After hearing and laughing at the story, the delegates of the Continental Congress became satisfied with many fewer changes to the Declaration of Independence than they had proposed.
• Thomas E. Dewey got into trouble early during his Presidential campaign against Harry Truman. On a cross-country journey by train, Mr. Dewey criticized the train engineer for leaving a station late. This caused much bad publicity for him, and New York Times reporter James Reston ended his article about the incident with “… and the train pulled off with a jerk.”
• Winston Churchill was a master of the English language, winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1953. Once he ran into a person who refused to end a sentence with a preposition, despite the unnatural sentences that resulted from his devotion to this rule. Sir Winston told the person, “This is English up with which I will not put.”
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Presenting
Michael Egan
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION
BANDCAMP MUSIC
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION OF BANDCAMP MUSIC
Music: "In Love with Your Wallet"
Album: AIN’T GOT NO TROUBLES
Artist: Eden Brent
Artist Location: Greenville, Mississippi
Record Company: Yellow Dog Records
Record Company Location: Memphis, Tennessee
Info:
piano and voice: Eden Brent
guitars: Colin Linden
electric bass: George Porter, Jr.
drums: Bryan Owings
“2006 International Blues Challenge winner Eden Brent is a masterful blues and boogie pianist and vocal stylist. Dubbed ‘Little Boogaloo’ by her mentor and duo partner, the late Abie ‘Boogaloo’ Ames, this Mississippi Delta native holds a degree in music performance but credits Ames’ down-home tutelage with teaching her how to ‘really play.’”
“Described by one critic as ‘Bessie Smith meets Diana Krall meets Janis Joplin,’ 2009's Blues Music Award winner of both ‘Acoustic Artist of the Year’ and ‘Acoustic Album of the Year’ is a masterful blues & boogie pianist and vocal stylist who combines elements of blues, jazz, soul, gospel and pop.”
“Yellow Dog Records carries the living lore of authentic American music into the present. Featuring new interpretations of Blues, Jazz, Soul, and Americana styles by established and emerging artists, Yellow Dog Records is where innovation confronts tradition. What’s left after the collision? Inspired explorations of America's musical roots.”
Price: $1 (USD) for track; $9 (USD) for 12-track album
Genre: Blues
Links:
AIN’T GOT NO TROUBLES
Eden Brent on Bandcamp
LittleBoogaloo (Eden Brent) on YouTube
Yellow Dog Records
Other Links:
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David Bruce's Amazon Author Page
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Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
Reader Comment
Current Events
Linda >^..^<
We are all only temporarily able bodied.
Thanks, Linda!
that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Lots of fireworks in the neighborhood made the shittens extra clingy.
Documentary Screening Will Go On As Planned
Betty White
Producers of Betty White: 100 Years Young, a documentary that was to be screened for one night only in theaters on White’s 100th birthday January 17, said Friday the show will go on to honor the iconic actress, who died Thursday night.
“Our hearts mourn today with the passing of Betty White,” producers Steve Boettcher and Mike Trinklein said in a statement on the Fathom Events page promoting the screening, which was to include the showing of the doc and live footage of what would have been White’s 100th birthday party.
“During the many years we worked with her, we developed a great love and admiration for Betty as a person, and as an accomplished entertainer,” they added. “We are thankful for the many decades of delight she brought to everyone. Betty always said she was the ‘luckiest broad on two feet’ to have had a career as long as she did. And honestly, we were the lucky ones to have had her for so long.
“We will go forward with our plans to show the film on January 17 in hopes our film will provide a way for all who loved her to celebrate her life—and experience what made her such a national treasure.”
The documentary includes highlights from White’s unprecedented TV career, her telling inside stories about her life, and clips of the funniest moments from such shows as The Golden Girls, SNL, Hot in Cleveland, The Proposal and The Mary Tyler Moore Show among others.
Betty White
Identifies As ‘Thespian’
Nicolas Cage
Nicolas Cage has said he would rather be called a “thespian” than an “actor”.
The Ghost Rider star explained his perceived difference between the two words, and why he was more inclined to self-identify as a thespian, in a new interview with Variety.
On the latest episode of Variety’s Awards Circuit Podcast, which was released on Thursday (30 December), Cage said: “For me it always implies, ‘Oh, he’s a great actor, therefore he’s a great liar.’”
So, Cage said, he prefers the term thespian despite the risk of sounding like a “pretentious a**hole”.
“‘Thespian’ means you’re going into your heart, or you’re going into your imagination, or your memories or your dreams, and you’re bringing something back to communicate with the audience,” said the 57-year-old, who has starred in more than 100 films since the 1984 rom-com Valley Girl catapulted him to fame.
Nicolas Cage
Public Domain
2022
“Winnie the Pooh” and “The Sun Also Rises” are going public.
A.A. Milne’s beloved children’s book and Ernest Hemingway’s classic novel, along with films starring Buster Keaton and Greta Garbo are among the works from 1926 whose copyrights will expire Saturday, putting them in the public domain as the calendar flips to 2022.
Poetry collections “The Weary Blues” by Langston Hughes and “Enough Rope” by Dorothy Parker will also turn 95 and enter the public domain under U.S. law.
The silent films “Battling Butler” starring and directed by Buster Keaton, “The Temptress” starring Greta Garbo, “The Son of the Sheik” starring Rudolph Valentino, and “For Heaven’s Sake” starring Harold Lloyd are also becoming public property.
And under 2018 legislation by Congress, sound recordings from the earliest area of electronic audio will become available.
2022
'Jumped The Gun'
NASCAR
NASCAR is reviewing driver Brandon Brown's new sponsorship deal that includes the phrase, "Let's Go Brandon," which has become a euphemism for an anti-President Joe Biden chant.
Brown, 28, on Thursday announced a cryptocurrency sponsorship deal with LGBcoin.io, which would include the phrase "Let's Go Brandon" on his car.
However, a NASCAR spokesperson told Motorsport.com that Brown had "jumped the gun" in announcing the deal.
Max Marcucci, who represents Brown, told USA Today that NASCAR had provided written approval for the deal before Brown announced the sponsorship.
NASCAR president Steve Phelps has previously said the organization wasn't happy with a NASCAR race being the start of the euphemism.
NASCAR
Review Launched
Operation Whistle Pig
U.S. Customs and Border Protection is conducting a review of a secretive division that uses some of the country’s most sensitive databases to investigate the travel and financial records and personal connections of journalists, members of Congress and other Americans not suspected of any crime.
“A review is underway to ensure that the activities in question during the prior Administration remain an isolated incident and that proper safeguards are in place to prevent an incident like this from taking place in the future,” Luis Miranda, a spokesperson for CBP, told Yahoo News.
CBP’s internal probe was prompted by Yahoo News’ reporting earlier this month on Operation Whistle Pig, a leak investigation targeting reporter Ali Watkins and her then boyfriend, James Wolfe, a Senate staffer. The investigation was launched by Jeffrey Rambo, a border patrol agent assigned to CBP’s Counter Network Division who was looking at whether Wolfe provided classified information to Watkins and other reporters.
As many as 20 national security reporters were also investigated during this time, according to an FBI counterintelligence memo included in the Department of Homeland Security inspector general report obtained by Yahoo News.
Pulitzer Prize-winning Associated Press reporter Martha Mendoza was one of the journalists vetted by the Counter Network Division — targeted only because she’d reported on forced labor, one of the issues related to CBP’s work. Huffington Post founder Arianna Huffington was also swept up in its dragnet.
Operation Whistle Pig
Retired General Warns
After 2024
A retired general has warned that the US military could lead a coup after the 2024 election if the results are unclear.
Paul Eaton, a retired US Army major general and an adviser to the progressive group VoteVets, told NPR earlier this week that “the real question is, does everybody understand who the duly elected president is? If that is not a clear cut understanding, that can infect the rank and file or at any level in the US military”.
“We saw it when 124 retired generals and admirals signed a letter contesting the 2020 election,” he added.
Maj Gen Eaton wrote an Op-Ed in The Washington Post alongside fellow generals Antonio Taguba and Steven Anderson on 17 December, stating that they are “chilled to our bones at the thought of a coup succeeding next time” and that the military needs to prepare.
“We’re interested in seeing mitigating measures applied to make sure that our military is better prepared for a contested election, should that happen in 2024,” Maj Gen Eaton told NPR.
After 2024
Failed Defense
Arizona
Kenneth Thompson — the Missouri man who traveled to Arizona, killed his sister-in-law and her boyfriend and used Scientology as a defense — died Wednesday, according to the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry. Officials are investigating his death as an apparent homicide.
Thompson was pronounced dead shortly after 1 p.m. Wednesday, the department announced. He was found in his "assigned housing unit where life-saving measures were conducted," the department said. He was an inmate in the Arizona State Prison Complex Eyman, in Florence.
Thompson's crime was shocking, and the subsequent northern Arizona trial was gripping. In 2012, he traveled to Arizona from his home in Missouri and used a hatchet and a knife to kill his sister-in-law and her boyfriend. He poured acid on their bodies, set the Prescott Valley house on fire and fled.
Thompson's wife had taken care of them while Penelope Edwards was in prison. Once she was released and got the children back, Thompson and his wife often worried about them. When Thompson learned one of the children was receiving psychiatric treatment at a children's hospital, that was the last straw.
Thompson was raised as a Scientologist and his attorneys argued that Scientologists view psychology as "evil and a scam." He believed he was on a mission to rescue these children from spiritual death, they argued.
Arizona
Stuck For Now
Citizenship
In recent years, Michael has come to regard the United States, the nation of which he has been a citizen all his life, as an abusive parent.
“I can acknowledge my past association with that person while at the same time wanting to keep future association to a minimum,” he said.
“Coronavirus made me realize that in the US, if you’re not a member of the moneyed elite you’re left to fend for yourself with virtually no help from the federal government,” he said. “The farcical presidential campaign made me realize that I don’t want to be a member of a society in which my vote is made irrelevant by gerrymandering or the electoral college.”
And so Michael decided to renounce his US citizenship. Having moved to Finland 10 years ago, he would break the ties that officially bound him to a country whose values he no longer recognised.
That’s when Michael’s troubles really began. He discovered that along with thousands of other US citizens living abroad, he was caught in a Kafkaesque trap.
Citizenship
Fish Fall From The Sky
Texarkana, Texas
Security video at Discount Wheel and Tire shows heavy rain coming down on Wednesday afternoon. But to the surprise of many, more than water was falling from the sky.
"I guess it started hailing, wind blowing, raining, hailing, and it could have been the fish slapping the roof that we were hearing too," one person said.
Employees at the shop had to go from installing tires to removing dead fish from the parking lot.
Miles away on Magnolia Street, Jeanie Tucker spent the morning checking for fallen fish in her yard and on top of her house.
"I can't believe it. I don't know when it happened," she said. "I never seen it before. Something tore them all to pieces. There were just heads and bodies without heads."
Texarkana, Texas
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