Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Paul Krugman: Attack of the Fanatical Centrists (NY Times)
Of obsessions, vanity and delusions of superiority.
Andrew Tobias: The Smartest Guy; The Nicest Guy; The Meanest Guy
The meanest guy, or surely in the running, is Mitch McConnell. I recently recounted a brief encounter and linked to "How Mitch McConnell's weak-kneed cowardice makes him the perfect target for agents of power and influence." He's this week renewed his effort to eliminate the estate tax on billionheirs, which is about as terrible an idea as there ever was. And now, it turns out, he's got a Russia connection, too.
Mary Beard: Literature festivals - Jaipur and elsewhere (TLS)
I have only been twice. But on both times it has made me wonder what we could do to democratise what we put on here. Sure, these festivals are pricey to host. But I have never seen anything in the UK on quite the same scale and apparent inclusiveness as I have seen at Jaipur.
K. Austin Collins: "In the Heat of the Night: The Double Bind" (Criterion)
In the Heat of the Night (1967) opens with an air of mystery, of outsiderness winding its way into the small town of Sparta, Mississippi, a place that right away seems heavy with a sense of what belongs and what doesn't. As Ray Charles croons the film's title song, images of a railroad crossing, tinged with red and blue lights, fill the screen. A train has just arrived. And a man, faceless, carrying a briefcase and already somehow marked by his difference, has just stepped off of it.
Sonia Saraiya: Alan Alda Just Wants to Have a Good Conversation (Vanity Fair)
The SAG life-achievement-award recipient for 2019 spoke to Vanity Fair about M*A*S*H, his legacy, and Louis C.K.
"Don't Try"
A lot of people wonder what "Don't Try" means on [Charles] Bukowski's grave marker. The origin of the inscription can be found in …
Michael Gregor, MD: How to Boost DNA Repair with Produce (NutritionFacts.org)
Not just vehicles for antioxidants, fruits and vegetables contain innumerable phytonutrients that can boost our detoxification enzymes, modulate gene expression, and even modulate DNA repair pathways. "Until fairly recently…it was generally assumed that functions as important as DNA repair were unlikely to be readily affected by nutrition," but, if you compare identical twins to fraternal twins, only about half to three quarters of DNA repair function is genetically determined. We may be able to control the rest.
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Presenting
Michael Egan
took the day off.
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
from Bruce
Anecdotes - Education
• A cart driver asked Rabbi Akiba to teach him the whole of the Torah all at once. Rabbi Akiba told him that Moses had stayed on the mountaintop 40 days and 40 nights to learn the Torah, but that if he really wanted to learn the basic principle of the Torah, he should learn this: "What is hateful to yourself, do not to your fellow man." Soon after, the cart driver went on a journey with two other men. They came to a field filled with seed pods, and the two other men took two seed pods each, but the cart driver took none. Then they came to a field filled with cabbages, and the two other men took two cabbages each, but the cart driver took none. They asked the cart driver why he wasn't taking anything, and he replied, "Thus did Rabbi Akiba teach me: 'What is hateful to yourself, do not to your fellow man.'"
• The book The Unwritten Curriculum by Arthur and Phyllis Blumberg contains this story: In the 4th grade, a student was in band. Because of band practice, he always missed half of an hour-long class. Once, an IQ test was given during that hour, and he was given only 30 minutes to complete it although the other students had an entire hour. Because of this, the test said that he had a very low IQ and he was assigned to a "slow" class in the 5th grade. Another IQ test was given in this grade. Because he was in a slow class, the student was given extra time to complete the test. Of course, this time the test said that he had a very high IQ and he was assigned to a "fast" class in the 6th grade. The student grew up to become an educator whose goal is to end standardized testing.
• After Joe Hyams tried tricky moves against a more skillful sparring partner - and got beat - kenpo-karate master Ed Parker spoke to him. Mr. Parker drew a line on the floor with chalk and asked, "How can you shorten the line?" Mr. Hyams gave several answers, all of which Mr. Parker rejected. Mr. Parker then drew a second, longer line and asked, "How does the first line look?" Of course, in comparison with the long, second line, the first line looked shorter. Mr. Parker then said, "It is always better to improve and strengthen your own line or knowledge than to try and cut your opponent's line." After that, Mr. Hyams tried to improve his own knowledge and skills instead of trying to trick his opponent.
• Once a drought afflicted Israel. The King and his ministers prayed to God, but the drought continued. The wise men and the captains made their prayers, but the drought continued. The lords and the rich men made their prayers, but the drought continued. Finally, an old man made his prayer, and rain fell. The King asked who he was, that God listened to his prayer after ignoring the prayers of so many others. The old man replied, "I am a teacher of little children."
• Peter Cartwright was a pioneer circuit-riding preacher who was suspicious of educated preachers. Once he met an educated preacher who addressed him in Greek in order to humiliate him. Not to be outdone, Mr. Cartwright spoke to him in German. The educated preacher, who did not know Hebrew, concluded that Mr. Cartwright had replied to him in that language, and said that Mr. Cartwright was the first educated Methodist preacher that he had ever seen.
• British boarding schools frequently provide a superior education. When actor Patrick Macnee (who as an adult played John Steed in The Avengers) was eight years old, he played the title role in a production of Shakespeare's Henry the Fifth. The play was performed in its entirety - completely uncut. (Playing the Dauphin - because he could speak both French and English - was eight-year-old Christopher Lee, who also became a professional actor.)
• When Leo Slezak was in the Austrian army, he taught other soldiers bugle calls by whistling them and having the other men imitate his whistles. Once he saw a man scribbling in a notebook and thought his efforts to teach were being ignored. However, when he looked in the man's notebook, he found that the man was writing down the bugle call: "Tadaradatataratatada!"
• A sculptor once had a child in kindergarten. For an entire year, the sculptor came into the kindergarten class - at the request of the teacher - once a week and "loved" clay. He didn't teach the children, but simply came in and "loved" clay. Just by watching the sculptor, the children also learned to "love" clay and became very creative with it.
• The Chofetz Chayim was against students pulling all-nighters; instead, he ordered that the lights be put out at midnight. He explained, "Whenever you have the desire to stay up all night to study, remember that this is a trick of the Evil Inclination. He wants you to go without sleep in order that you might be incapacitated for study altogether."
• While Malcolm Glenn Wyer was working as a librarian at the State University of Iowa, the library was moved into temporary quarters. One day, Mr. Wyer showed the library to a group of college presidents, but explained to them that these were only temporary quarters. The President of the University of Minnesota, Dr. George E. Vincent, heard him and laughed, then explained, "Mr. Wyer, when you have been around universities as long as I have, you will find out that in a university nothing is more permanent than temporary quarters." Dr. Vincent was right - the library stayed in its "temporary" quarters for more than 45 years.
• The Emperor of Ryo wanted to learn about Zen Buddhism, so he asked Zen master Fu-daishi to explain the Diamond Sutra to him on a certain day. Fu-daishi arrived on the appointed day and stood behind the speaker's table. Without saying anything, he rapped on the table, then left. Another Zen master, Shiko, witnessed the demonstration, and he asked the Emperor of Ryo, "May I be so bold, sir, as to ask whether you understood?" The Emperor shook his head, No, and Shiko said, "What a pity! Fu-daishi has never been more eloquent."
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In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Argle bargle. Ack.
Doesn't Mince Words
Ellen Page
On The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, actress and activist Ellen Page took aim at Vice President Mike Pence. The former governor of Indiana has historically fought against the legalization of same-sex marriage and has been accused of advocating for gay conversion therapy. Because of this, Page made an impassioned plea for change.
"The vice president of America wishes I didn't have the love with my wife," Page said in front of the live studio audience, which booed in support of Page. "He wanted to ban that in Indiana. He believes in conversion therapy."
Page then went on to place blame on Pence for the reported attack on Empire star Jussie Smollett, who said he was assaulted early Tuesday morning in Chicago by two white men who battered him, put a rope around his neck and poured an unknown chemical substance on him believed to be bleach. The police are investigating the incident as a possible hate crime.
"He has hurt LGBTQ people so badly as the governor of Indiana," Page said, "and I think the thing we need to know, and I hope my show Gaycation did this in terms of connecting the dots, in terms of what happened the other day to Jussie - I don't know him personally, I send all of my love - connect the dots."
"If you are in a position of power and you hate people and you want to cause suffering to them, you go through the trouble, you spend your career trying to cause suffering, what do you think is gonna happen?" Page asked. "Kids are gonna be abused and they're gonna kill themselves. And people are gonna be beaten on the street."
Ellen Page
Unpublished Work To Be Released
J.D. Salinger
One of the book world's greatest mysteries is finally ending: J.D. Salinger's son says previously unpublished work by his late father will be coming out.
In comments that appeared Friday in The Guardian, Matt Salinger confirmed longstanding reports that the author of "The Catcher in the Rye" had continued to write decades after he stopped publishing books. He said that he and Salinger's widow, Colleen, are "going as fast as we freaking can" to prepare the material for release.
"He wanted me to pull it together, and because of the scope of the job, he knew it would take a long time," Salinger said of his father, who died in 2010 and had not published work since the mid-1960s.
"This was somebody who was writing for 50 years without publishing, so that's a lot of material. So there's not a reluctance or a protectiveness: When it's ready, we're going to share it," he said.
Salinger, who helps oversee his father's literary estate, says any new work might be years away and did not cite any specific titles or plots. He did indicate that the Glass family made famous in such fiction as "Franny and Zooey" would be seen again.
J.D. Salinger
Son Decries New Biopic
David Bowie
Yesterday, it was announced that actor and musician Johnny Flynn would be playing a Ziggy Stardust-era David Bowie in Stardust, a new biopic about the late artist that would reportedly feature the singer's music. Later that day, Bowie's son, Duncan Jones, not only decried the film, but disputed some of the reported details about the project, namely that the filmmakers had rights to Bowie's music.
"Pretty certain nobody has been granted music rights for ANY biopic," he wrote on Twitter. "I would know." In a follow-up tweet, Jones clarified that the film, which comes from producers at Salon Pictures and Piccadilly Pictures, does not have the family's blessing.
"I'm saying that as it stands, this movie won't have any of dads music in it, & I can't imagine that changing," he wrote. "If you want to see a biopic without his music or the families blessing, thats up to the audience."
Jones, a filmmaker himself, waved off comments that he should helm his own biopic about his father. "Genuinely, I'm not the right person to make it, he wrote. "My perspective is far too uniquely subjective and personal." He does, however, know exactly who he'd like to see head up the project: One, Neil Gaiman, is a zeitgeist-defining sci-fi writer, while the other, Peter Ramsey, made one of 2018's best movies in Into The Spider-Verse. For Jones, an animated film encompassing the breadth of Bowie's alter-egos is the way to go.
In a tweet to the pair, Jones said he would "urge everyone on my end to pay attention and give the pitch serious consideration" if they were involved. In a later tweet, he said he would "stay completely out of the way, cheerleading with all my heart."
David Bowie
Ad For Google Assistant
Joe Pesci
Hey Google, what has Joe Pesci been up to lately?
The "Home Alone" and "Goodfellas" actor has largely remained out of the public eye, and his first movie in nine years will be Martin Scorsese's "The Irishman," due out later this year. But in a rare, surprise appearance, Pesci showed up in a Google commercial in which he watches and admires yet another Google commercial.
Several weeks back, Google released an ad featuring an all-grown-up Macaulay Culkin using the Google Assistant to get him through his day while stuck Home Alone. It was cute, though not quite a reunion, because although you heard a young Pesci's voice at the end, the actor was nowhere to be seen.
But now Google has imagined Pesci as an actor who got lucky enough to do some voice work for a big commercial during the Super Bowl.
Joe Pesci
Sexual Assaults Rise By 50%
US Military Academies
The number of sexual assaults at America's military academies rose by almost 50 percent over the past two years, despite extensive efforts to combat the problem, a Pentagon report said Thursday.
About 12,900 cadets attend the Army, Navy and Air Force academies that train future officers to lead America's vast military.
Every other year, they are given the chance to fill in an anonymous survey about unwanted sexual contact or sexual assaults.
According to the figures from 2018, 747 people reported some sort of sexual assault -- up from 507 in 2016, an increase of more than 47 percent.
The biggest increase was noted at the Army's West Point Academy in New York, where 16.5 percent of women reported some sort of sexual assault, up from 10.2 percent previously.
US Military Academies
Pulls Out Of Fact-Checking Partnership With Facebook
Snopes
Snopes, the popular myth-busting website, said Friday it was ending its fact-checking partnership with Facebook as part of a "difficult, but necessary change."
A Snopes statement said it was "evaluating the ramifications and costs of providing third-party fact-checking services," and wants the efforts to be "a net positive for our online community, publication, and staff."
The statement did not elaborate but Snopes vice president Vinny Green told the media education group Poynter the partnership was excessively labor intensive, requiring manual updates to fact checks by its staff of 16.
"With a manual system and a closed system, it's impossible to keep on top of that stuff," Green told Poynter.
Snopes said it agreed to partner with Facebook "without financial benefit to ourselves," but added that it faces increasing financial difficulties.
Snopes
Returning To Theaters For 80th Anniversary
'Gone With the Wind'
Viewers were captivated by the complicated love affair between Scarlett O'Hara, Rhett Butler and Ashley Wilkes when "Gone With the Wind" was first released in theaters in 1939. The classic film, based off the novel by Margaret Mitchell, won a record-setting eight Oscars and is the highest-grossing movie at the global box office (when adjusted for inflation).
Now, 80 years later, "Gone With the Wind" is returning to the big screen. Frankly, my dear, it's time to buy some tickets - because it will only be shown in select theaters for a limited time. Courtesy of Warner Bros. and Fathom Events, you can watch the beloved film at participating locations Thursday, Feb. 28, and Sunday, March 3. There will be afternoon and evening show times at 1 p.m. and 6 p.m.
Tickets can be purchased for the film's theatrical return in your area at the Fathom Events website or at select box offices.
'Gone With the Wind'
Hits Cuba
Meteorite
A meteorite appeared to hit western Cuba early Friday afternoon, the National Weather Service in Key West said. In a tweet, the National Weather Service said its radar "may have detected the meteor" at 1:21 p.m. near Viñales, Cuba.
The NOAA's GOES East satellite also detected the apparent meteor flash, NASA Sport said in a blog post.
Amid speculation on social media, Cuban state media denied that any planes had crashed, calling it a "natural, physical phenomenon."
State-run Juventud Rebelde said a team of specialists from Cuba's Geophysics and Astronomy Institute had been sent to Pinar del Rio to study a possible meteor strike.
The biggest meteor hit in modern history -- the 1908 explosion over Tunguska, Russia -- flattened 800 square miles of forest.
Meteorite
Top 20
Global Concert Tours
The Top 20 Global Concert Tours ranks artists by average box office gross per city and includes the average ticket price for shows Worldwide. The list is based on data provided to the trade publication Pollstar by concert promoters and venue managers. Week of January 30, 2019:
1. Taylor Swift; $7,732,340; $123.46.
2. U2; $4,753,471; $135.83.
3. Ed Sheeran; $4,506,091; $92.55.
4. Drake; $4,041,588; $116.88.
5. Bruno Mars; $3,627,965; $145.63.
6. Eagles; $3,394,372; $180.26.
7. Roger Waters; $3,237,377; $72.42.
8. Billy Joel; $2,752,443; $123.77.
9. Elton John; $2,721,702; $130.66.
10. Metallica; $2,224,842; $129.36.
11. "Springsteen On Broadway"; $2,149,554; $509.02.
12. Phil Collins; $2,092,876; $150.65.
13. Justin Timberlake; $2,090,877; $129.16.
14. Journey / Def Leppard; $1,870,896; $98.79.
15. Fleetwood Mac; $1,850,333; $132.67.
16. Luis Miguel; $1,826,884; $94.44.
17. Sam Smith; $1,617,591; $110.08.
18. Maroon 5; $1,577,446; $105.48.
19. Luke Bryan; $1,458,104; $79.67.
20. Jeff Lynne's ELO; $1,443,766; $108.90.
Global Concert Tours
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