Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Michael Brice-Saddler: Patton Oswalt got into a Twitter war with a Trump supporter - then helped pay his medical bills (Washington Post)
"Aw, man. This dude just attacked me on Twitter and I joked back but then I looked at his timeline and he's in a LOT of trouble health-wise. I'd be pissed off too. He's been dealt some shitty cards - let's deal him some good ones. Click and donate - just like I'm about to." - Patton Oswalt
Paul Krugman: The Sum of Some Global Fears (NY Times)
Setting the table for a smorgasbord recession.
S.V. Date: Whether by resignation, impeachment, a 2020 loss or finishing a second term, Donald Trump one day will no longer lead the GOP he has so radically transformed. So then what? (Huffington Post)
"We're in a demographic death spiral," said Republican consultant John Weaver, a top aide to former Ohio GOP Gov. John Kasich. "If we were Coca-Cola or Delta or any product on the market, would you be happy that your customers, your base of support, were old, white and closed-minded?"
Mary Beard: Getting out and about (TLS)
When I started this blog however many years ago, a friend who was also blogging said there was a little-realised advantage of being a blogger: it got you out and about a bit. That is to say, you couldn't always just blog about sitting in the library and reading books (though I have done my fair share of that!). So the thought of the blog did sometimes make the difference between staying in again, and getting off my ass and seeing the new exhibition or museum that I didn't really have the energy for.
Mary Beard: Wetherspoons and no deal (TLS)
I am, I like to think, a fervent but smiley remainer. I have a good number of friends who voted Leave, and I argue with them fervently, would undermine their cause however I could, but I don't shun them… and we have good times. I found my own sense of fair play a bit challenged today …
Mary Beard: Ruskin and the pubic hair? (TLS)
On Front Row Late on Friday we were talking about Beauty, starting with a feature on John Ruskin, and including an interview with the amazing drag queen, Panti Bliss. (You can see it here.) In the course of this, I mentioned the famous anecdote about Ruskin's wedding night. The story is that, when he saw Effie's pubic hair (something he didn't know about before), he was so disgusted that he never consummated the marriage. This is not a fully authenticated story.
Nathan Rabin: "Mikey and Nicky: Difficult Men" (Criterion)
Elaine May is a writer and filmmaker and actor and improviser, but beyond that, she is an artist whose career-long quest for truth has driven her to create work that has taken many forms but always sought to cast aside the easy crutches of cliché and convention to express something profound and real about the human condition.
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David Bruce has over 100 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
Presenting
Michael Egan
took the day off.
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
from Bruce
Anecdotes
• In 1978, when she was age 23, Jill Baer got a chance to manage a major-league baseball team. She met Los Angeles Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda and Dodgers first-baseman Steve Garvey in a TV studio where she worked, and she took the opportunity to ask Mr. Lasorda to allow her to manage the Dodgers for one game during spring-season training. Mr. Lasorda was impressed with the knowledge of baseball that she had displayed before asking him that question, and he answered yes. She flew to Vera Beach, Florida, location of the Dodgers' spring-training camp, and she was issued a uniform with number 2-the same number as Mr. Lasorda. For a week, Ms. Baer watched the players and took notes. When she took over as manager from Mr. Lasorda for one game, she made out the lineup the same way that he made it out-with one change. She switched Ron Cey and Steve Garvey and made Mr. Garvey the clean-up hitter instead of Mr. Cey. All went well for a while, but when the Dodgers' third batter went to the plate, Mr. Cey started for the on-deck circle. Mr. Baer told him, "You're batting fifth today." Mr. Cey replied, "I bat cleanup." Immediately, Ms. Baer said, "Not on my ball club." Dodger outfielder Dusty Baker advised Mr. Cey, whose nickname was Penguin, "You better sit down, Penguin, or she'll have you in Albuquerque [where the Dodgers had a minor-league team] by the end of the week." Mr. Cey sat down. Actually, Ms. Baer did not manage the team for the entire game. She argued with the umpire, and the umpire told her, "Go to the showers!" Ms. Baer replied, "I can't-I'm a girl." Then she left the field to a standing ovation of her players and the fans. (And the Dodgers won, 5-2.) Late in the season, with a pennant to be won, Mr. Lasorda switched the batting order of Mr. Cey and Mr. Garvey and made Mr. Garvey the clean-up hitter instead of Mr. Cey, just like Ms. Baer had done. The Dodgers won games playing the then-first-place Giants, and the Dodgers won the pennant.
• New York Yankees Mickey Mantle, Billy Martin, and Whitey Ford enjoyed having fun, and after a preseason game in Cincinnati in 1953 they had so much fun that they missed the train the team was travelling on. No problem, they thought. They would simply take a flight instead to Pittsburgh to play the Pirates. Unfortunately, bad weather kept the planes out of the air, and the Yankee players were forced to take a taxi instead. They learned an important lesson: a taxi ride across states can cost $500-a large amount of money in 1953. (By the way, tired as he was in Pittsburgh, Mickey hit a home run over the 100-foot-high fence at Forbes Field. Yankee manager Casey Stengel, who was not happy about his players missing the team bus, said, "Nice hit, Mickey.") Of course, Mr. Mantle was a home-run hitter. On September 12, 1953, Yankee coach Bill Dickey was saying that players such as Babe Ruth and Jimmy Foxx could hit the ball further than Mr. Mantle. Immediately after Mr. Dickey said that, Mr. Mantle hit a home run that was still in an upward trajectory when it hit the seats high above left field. Mr. Dickey watched the home run and then said, "Forget what I said."
• In 1998, Mark McGwire hit 70 home runs to break Roger Maris' 37-year-old record of 61 home runs in a single season. Mr. Maris, who died in 1985, had realized that someday someone would break his record, so he had left something behind for that person. Mr. McGwire received a cap that was signed by Mr. Maris with two 61's on it. Mr. McGwire also is capable of giving good baseball gifts. When he became the first player ever to hit 50 or more home runs three seasons in a row, he signed a baseball for each of his teammates. On each baseball, he wrote "50-50-50." He also personalized each baseball with a teammate's name and wrote the date. In 1990, when Mark McGwire won his first Rawlings Gold Glove, he gave it away - to his optometrist. Mr. McGwire was considerate in other ways, also. When he broke Mr. Maris' record, members of Mr. Maris' family were in the crowd. Mr. McGwire made sure to go to them in the stands and hug them. Roger Maris Jr. said, "For him to come up there and do that, let us partake in that moment, it is outstanding and something we will never forget."
• Of course, umpires can throw players and managers out of baseball games, and occasionally they even throw public address announcers out of games. In 1995, the home-plate umpire got into an altercation with minor-league manager Charlie Kerfeld, who shook his eyeglasses at the umpire. The team's media director asked the public address announcer to make the next announcement to kill time during the on-the-field argument. The next announcement was for a local eyeglass maker, and the umpire threw out the announcer. The media director, Bruce Unrue, said, "It was totally innocent, but the umps didn't think it was funny. Of course, the crowd thought that was hilarious."
• In 1926, the New York Yankees boasted some heavy hitters. In a game in Cleveland, Indians player Joe Shaute pitched outside to left-handed hitters Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig to keep them from pulling the ball to right field. Babe hit a baseball that knocked third baseman Rube Lutzke down after hitting him on the shoulder. Lou then hit a baseball that hit Rube's shin. Next Bob Meusel, a right-handed batter, hit a baseball that hit Rube in the stomach. This time, Rube went down and stayed down. The Indians players gathered around him. Joe asked, "Are you hurt, Rube?" Rube answered, "Am I hurt? A guy would have been safer in the world war."
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Reader Comment
Current Events
Lock 'em ALL up
Comment on Wonkette--If Trump really wanted to see Hillary locked up, he should've just hired her to work on his campaign?
Another comment--Trump caved so hard there are miners trapped inside him.
Linda >^..^<
We are all only temporarily able bodied.
Thanks, Linda!
Selected Readings
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In The Chaos Household
Last Night
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30th Annual Media Awards
GLAAD
This year marks the 30th anniversary of the GLAAD Media awards, celebrating the representation of LGBTQ+ people and stories across film, TV, comics, journalism, and more-and this year's nominees reveal a few interesting firsts.
Today GLAAD revealed the full list of nominees for this year's awards, set to be held across two events in Los Angeles (Thursday, March 28) and New York (Saturday, May 4)-and genre content is making waves across a variety of categories, including Deadpool 2 for Outstanding Film - Wide Release, the first time a superhero movie has been nominated in the category (but not the first comic book movie, with V for Vendetta and Scott Pilgrim receiving nods in the past).
In another first for the GLAAD Awards, video games received their own category, with everything from blockbuster titles like Assassin's Creed Odyssey-awkwardly timed, given the current controversy about LGBTQ representation in its latest DLC-to MMOs like The Elder Scrolls Online and Guild Wars 2 getting highlighted.
Elsewhere animated series Adventure Time, Steven Universe, and She-Ra got nods in the family and kids programming category, and the CW's Black Lightningjoined the regularly featured Supergirl for the first time as nominees for outstanding Drama series. And then comics, now a stalwart of the awards show, features offerings from publishers big and small, with Marvel, DC, Black Mask, Boom Studios, and Abstract picking up nods-including Star Wars: Doctor Aphra for Marvel, a welcome nod for a galaxy far, far away that still has a long way to go with introducing more visible LGBTQ characters.
GLAAD
Helps Save a Life
'The Office'
A classic scene from a decade-old episode of "The Office" helped an Arizona mechanic save an unconscious woman's life.
The Arizona Daily Star reports that 21-year-old Cross Scott found a woman locked in her car this month and broke in, finding she wasn't breathing.
He doesn't have any emergency training but thought of the show where Steve Carell's character does CPR to the tune of the Bee Gees' song "Stayin' Alive." The song has the correct tempo for chest compressions.
Within a minute, the woman was breathing, and she was taken to a hospital and later released.
Scott, who shares the last name of Carell's character Michael Scott, had help from two women who also stopped when they saw the car and called 911.
'The Office'
Las Vegas Residency
Cardi B
Cardi B is the latest artist to line up a Las Vegas residency as the Palms Casino Resort revealed Wednesday that the rapper would perform a string of dates this spring at the casino's forthcoming day and night club, KAOS.
The Associated Press reports that G-Eazy, Skrillex, Above and Beyond and Kaskade have also signed up for residencies at KAOS, which opens in April following a $690 million renovation. While Cardi B has not yet publicly addressed the residency, on Wednesday, the venue confirmed the aforementioned artists' featured residencies in a graphic via its website. It also revealed a handful of upcoming show dates that are currently on sale, including sets from Kaskade (April 12th and 19th, May 10th and 11th) who is scheduled for day and night appearances, and Skrillex (April 13th, May 2nd and 11th).
While Cardi B's KAOS residency dates are not yet available, the Palms confirmed to Variety that the rapper will perform five-to-six shows over the course of the next year, with the first appearance expected to be scheduled in the spring.
The rapper will next take the stage February 2nd at Atlanta's Super Bowl Music Fest and at the Grammy Awards. In addition to the Vegas residency, Cardi B has also book festival gigs at Bonnaroo and Gulf Shores, Alabama's Hangout.
Cardi B
Loses GLAAD Award Nomination
'Bohemian Rhapsody'
"Bohemian Rhapsody" has been removed as a best original film nominee at this year's GLAAD Media Awards, following new accusations of sexual assault and misconduct against director Bryan Singer.
The media watchdog told Variety exclusively it has pulled the film from contention for the prize, in a weighted decision that takes a stand for sexual assault victims. Singer has consistently denied misconduct, and called the Atlantic story "a homophobic smear piece."
"In light of the latest allegations against director Bryan Singer, GLAAD has made the difficult decision to remove 'Bohemian Rhapsody' from contention for a GLAAD Media Award in the Outstanding Film - Wide Release category this year. This week's story in The Atlantic documenting unspeakable harms endured by young men and teenage boys brought to light a reality that cannot be ignored or even tacitly rewarded," GLAAD said in a statement to Variety.
"Singer's response to The Atlantic story wrongfully used 'homophobia' to deflect from sexual assault allegations and GLAAD urges the media and the industry at large to not gloss over the fact that survivors of sexual assault should be put first," the statement continued.
Reps for Singer and 20th Century Fox, the distributor of "Bohemian Rhapsody," had no immediate comment. The full list of nominations will be announced Friday morning live on Facebook at 10 a.m. E.T.
'Bohemian Rhapsody'
Greece Ratifies Accord
North Macedonia
Greece on Friday ratified a landmark accord that changes the name of neighbouring Macedonia, ending a decades-old dispute with its neighbour and opening the way for the ex-Yugoslav republic to join the European Union and NATO.
Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, who hammered out the deal with his Macedonian counterpart last year, secured enough votes to scrape the vote through a deeply-divided parliament on the third day of a debate fraught with emotion, anger and cries of betrayal.
The settlement seeks to end a 28-year old row between Athens and Skopje over the use of the term "Macedonia" by renaming the tiny Balkan state "Republic of North Macedonia" to differentiate from Greece's northern province of Macedonia.
Many Greeks opposing the deal view it as an attempt by their neighbours to hijack ancient Greek civilization and culture.
But Tsipras, a leftist firebrand who swept to power an anti-austerity platform as Greece was deep in financial crisis in 2015, made a point of pursuing a deal.
North Macedonia
Police Confiscate Paintings
Three Watercolors
Three watercolors said to be painted by Adolf Hitler were set to go up for auction in Berlin at the Kloss Auction House on Thursday. But in a turn of events, Berlin police confiscated the paintings in a raid later that day on the suspicion that they are forgeries.
Kloss Auction House published a statement Friday afternoon explaining that the works had been sold to them by "a private individual" and had been verified professionally.
The auction house had set a starting price of 4,000 euros ($4,500) on each of the watercolors, said to be painted between 1910 and 1911. Depicting tranquil landscapes, the works were signed "A. Hitler."
Hitler failed the entrance exams to the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts twice. Prior to fighting in World War I, he tried unsuccessfully to make a living as an artist, painting postcards and pictures for tourists. He eventually turned away from his artistic pursuits and led the Nazi Party, ordering the deaths of millions.
Thousands of Hitler's works exist, as well as many forgeries. The pieces up for auction at Kloss had certificates of authenticity signed between 2017 and 2018.
Three Watercolors
British Explorer's Remains Found
Matthew Flinders
The excavation of a centuries-old cemetery beneath a London train station has led to an exciting discovery: a long-lost British explorer.
The remains of Matthew Flinders, a British Royal Navy captain who led the first expedition to sail around the entire coast of Australia, were found under London's bustling Euston station, according to the company developing a major railway project in the area.
Archaeologists made the discovery earlier this month while exhuming some 40,000 graves in St James's Cemetery, behind the train station, in preparation for the construction of the $70 billion HS2 high-speed rail line that will link the British capital with Birmingham.
Flinders was buried in the sprawling churchyard in July 1814 after his death at the age of 40. But his grave site was lost in the mid-19th century following the expansion of Euston station into part of the burial ground. Archaeologists were able to identify his remains by the lead plate attached to the top of his coffin, according to a Jan. 22 press release from HS2 Ltd.
Accompanied by a crew and his beloved cat Trim, Flinders led the first circumnavigation of Australia in an epic voyage that lasted from 1801 to 1803. The English navigator and cartographer is credited for identifying the landmass as a continent and giving Australia its name.
Matthew Flinders
Found On the Moon
Earth Rock
One of Earth's oldest rocks may have been dug up on the moon.
A chunk of material brought back from the lunar surface by Apollo astronautsin 1971 harbors a tiny piece of Earth, a new study suggests. The Earth fragment was likely blasted off our planet by a powerful impact about 4 billion years ago, according to the new research.
"It is an extraordinary find that helps paint a better picture of early Earth and the bombardment that modified our planet during the dawn of life," study co-author David Kring, a Universities Space Research Association (USRA) scientist at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, said in a statement. (Biologists generally believe that life got a foothold on Earth between 4.1 billion and 3.8 billion years ago.)
The research team - led by Jeremy Bellucci, of the Swedish Museum of Natural History, and Alexander Nemchin, of the Swedish Museum and Curtin University in Australia - analyzed lunar samples collected by members of the Apollo 14 mission, which explored the lunar surface for a few days in early February 1971.
The scientists found that one rock contained a 0.08-ounce (2 grams) fragment composed of quartz, feldspar and zircon, all of which are rare on the moon but common here on Earth. Chemical analyses indicated that the fragment crystallized in an oxidized environment, at temperatures consistent with those found in the near subsurface of the early Earth, study team members said.
Earth Rock
Secret Messages to Your Ear
Lasers
Scientists have devised a way to communicate secretly by sending laser-transmitted messages directly into the area around a person's ear.
Humans enjoy talking with one another, and often do so in ways that prevent eavesdroppers from listening in. This new research could have potential military applications-but who knows where else it might find use?
How would such a device work? It might help to understand what sound really is: pulses or vibrations that travel via air molecules into our eardrums, which then vibrate, becoming the analog input that our brains interpret as specific sounds.
The device generates sounds in the air using a process called the photoacoustic effect. The researchers tune the laser light to a specific wavelength that they know will cause water molecules in the air to vibrate but that won't cause damage to our eyes.
But the laser only makes the molecules vibrate-the researchers needed to introduce another element in order to bestow the air's ambient water molecules with more sound than just a single drone or pulse. Past experiments, as well as this one, used an instrument called an "acousto-optic modulator" to change the strength of the laser pulse, and in turn the behavior of the water molecules. But in this paper, the researchers also developed a new method, where the laser first passes into a quickly spinning mirror, which essentially spreads the laser beam out. Tweaking the size of the spread produces different frequencies.
Lasers
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