Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Steven Pinker: Political Correctness Might Be Redpilling America (YouTube)
Harvard psychology professor Steven Pinker argues that political correctness actually breeds the very same extremist views it hopes to quash.
Paul Krugman: Nasty, Brutish and Trump (NY Times Column)
On Wednesday, after listening to the heart-rending stories of those who lost children and friends in the Parkland school shooting - while holding a cue card with empathetic-sounding phrases - Donald Trump proposed his answer: arming schoolteachers. It says something about the state of our national discourse that this wasn't even among the vilest, stupidest reactions to the atrocity. No, those honors go to the assertions by many conservative figures that bereaved students were being manipulated by sinister forces, or even that they were paid actors.
Josh Marshall: Gun Rights, 'Positive Good' and the Evolution of Mutually Assured Massacre (TPM)
All available evidence suggests the obvious: more guns, more gun deaths. Lott's whole thesis is almost comically flawed for anyone who understands the interaction of human nature and game theory. The empirical studies all seem flawed. Even apart from this, a big chunk of the population, probably the majority, simply doesn't want to live in a high-fear, maximally armed society. But these are all the consequences of the NRA's 'positive good' theory of guns. That's where Trump got this inane idea. It's not strange at all. We should expect it.
Jenna Goudreau: "Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker: The No. 1 communication mistake that even smart people make" (CNBC)
"There are many battles of history that were lost because of botched communication," says Steven Pinker, a professor of psychology at Harvard University. In today's workplace where email and Slack conversations are as common as in-person meetings, the perils of miscommunication are ever-present. And no one is immune.
Andrew Tobias: "A Way Forward: Listening"
Listening to each other requires - it seems to me - not shutting down people we disagree with. Even if we really disagree.
Madeleine Lamon: In new op-ed, Amy Wax slams lack of 'civil discourse,' alleges that Penn asked her to leave (Daily Pennsylvanian)
Wax alleges that Law School Dean Ted Ruger asked her "to take a leave of absence."
David Brooks: Respect First, Then Gun Control (NY Times)
We don't really have policy debates anymore. We have one big tribal conflict, and policy fights are just proxy battles as each side tries to establish moral superiority. But just as the tribal mentality has been turned on, it can be turned off. Then and only then can we go back to normal politics and take reasonable measures to keep our children safe.
Canal plus - man in closet ad (YouTube)
This is a story that is hard to believe. Copyright belongs to Euroscg and Canal +
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Presenting
Michael Egan
answered:
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Reader Comment
Current Events
Wonkette cracks me up
Who knew Mueller could make boring financial stuff so fascinating and that Wonkette could then use it to make me laugh?!
Spoiler alert!--the last sentence of Evan's article is totally profane and totally made me chuckle:
That's right, the ending is Robert Mueller's signature, because Robert Mueller 'bout to fuck these two boys the fuck up!
Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
from Marc Perkel
Marc's Guide to Curing Cancer
So far so good on beating cancer for now. I'm doing fine. At the end of the month I'll be 16 months into an 8 month mean lifespan. And yesterday I went on a 7 mile hike and managed to keep up with the hiking group I was with. So, doing something right.
Still waiting for future test results and should see things headed in the right direction. I can say that it's not likely that anything dire happens in the short term so that means that I should have time to make several more attempts at this. So even if it doesn't work the first time there are a lot of variations to try. So if there's bad news it will help me pick the next radiation target.
I have written a "how to" guide for oncologists to perform the treatment that I got. I'm convinced that I'm definitely onto something and whether it works for me or not isn't the definitive test. I know if other people tried this that it would work for some of them, and if they improve it that it will work for a lot of them.
The guide is quite detailed and any doctor reading this can understand the procedure at every level. I also go into detail as to how it works, how I figured it out, and variations and improvements that could be tried to enhance it. I also introduce new ways to look at the problem. There is a lot of room for improvement and I think that doctors reading it will see what I'm talking about and want to build on it. And it's written so that if you're not a doctor you can still follow it. It also has a personal story revealing that I'm the class clown of cancer support group. I give great interviews and I look pretty hot in a lab coat.
So, feel free to read this and see what I'm talking about. But if any of you want to help then pass this around to both doctors and cancer patients. I need some media coverage. I'm looking for as many eyeballs as possible to read these ideas. Even if this isn't the solution, it's definitely on the right track. After all, I did hike 7 miles yesterday. And this hiking group wasn't moving slow. So if this isn't working then, why am I still here?
I also see curing cancer as more of an engineering problem that a medical problem. So if you are good at solving problems and most of what you know about medicine was watching the Dr. House MD TV show, then you're at the level I was at when I started. So anyone can jump in and be part of the solution.
Here is a link to my guide: Oncologists Guide to Curing Cancer using Abscopal Effect
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
"GET OFF MY LAWN!"
FAKE NEWS AND FOX NEWS.
THE "DISCOUNT ANN COULTER."
POOR BABY!
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Running late.
'Nation Of Immigrants'
USCIS
The government agency in charge of granting citizenship to prospective Americans has removed a passage from its mission statement that describes the United States as a nation of immigrants.
The move by the US Citizenship and Immigration Services agency was first revealed via an email shared with the Intercept, confirmed by the Guardian Thursday.
Whereas the mission statement had previously read:
USCIS secures America's promise as a nation of immigrants by providing accurate and useful information to our customers, granting immigration and citizenship benefits, promoting an awareness and understanding of citizenship, and ensuring the integrity of our immigration system."
It will now read:
US Citizenship and Immigration Services administers the nation's lawful immigration system, safeguarding its integrity and promise by efficiently and fairly adjudicating requests for immigration benefits while protecting Americans, securing the homeland, and honoring our values.
USCIS
Shreds Jr.
Jimmy Kimmel
Jimmy Kimmel has absolutely no time for people who peddle conspiracy theories, including Donald Trump Jr. (R-Beyond Contempt)
On Wednesday's "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" the late-night host tore into people who claim that the survivors of last week's deadly school shooting in Parkland, Florida, were really "crisis actors" trying to advance a left-wing agenda. And he took particular aim at President Donald Trump's eldest son, who liked two tweets promoting a conspiracy theory about the shooting.
"This is our president's son doing that," said Kimmel. "Liking a story that directly defames a student that survived a shooting."
Kimmel then issued a message to anyone who thinks the teenagers who spoke out in the aftermath of the massacre were actors and "part of some kind of deep state, left-wing conspiracy."
"I have some bad news for you. You are crazy. You are a crazy person. Your brain is not functioning, and I'm worried about you."
Jimmy Kimmel
Youthful Brains
Superagers
It's pretty extraordinary for people in their 80s and 90s to keep the same sharp memory as someone several decades younger, and now scientists are peeking into the brains of these "superagers" to uncover their secret.
The work is the flip side of the disappointing hunt for new drugs to fight or prevent Alzheimer's disease.
Instead, "why don't we figure out what it is we might need to do to maximize our memory?" said neuroscientist Emily Rogalski, who leads the SuperAging study at Northwestern University in Chicago.
Parts of the brain shrink with age, one of the reasons why most people experience a gradual slowing of at least some types of memory late in life, even if they avoid diseases like Alzheimer's.
But it turns out that superagers' brains aren't shrinking nearly as fast as their peers'. And autopsies of the first superagers to die during the study show they harbor a lot more of a special kind of nerve cell in a deep brain region that's important for attention, Rogalski told a recent meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Superagers
European Art Scene
Neanderthals
From the murky depths of Spanish caves comes a surprising insight: Neanderthals created art.
That's been proposed before, but experts say two new studies finally give convincing evidence that our evolutionary cousins had the brainpower to make artistic works and use symbols.
The key finding: New age estimates that show paintings on cave walls and decorated seashells in Spain were created long before our species entered Europe. So there's no way Homo sapiens could have made them or influenced Neanderthals to merely copy their artwork.
Until now, most scientists thought all cave paintings were the work of our species. But the new work concludes that some previously known paintings - an array of lines, some disks and the outline of a hand - were rendered about 20,000 years before H. sapiens moved into Europe.
That's a surprise that "constitutes a major breakthrough in the field of human evolution studies," said Wil Roebroeks of Leiden University in the Netherlands, an expert on Neanderthals who didn't participate in the new work.
Neanderthals
Cut Cord
Corporate Partners
The fallout over last week's shooting rampage at a Florida high school started to take its toll on the National Rifle Association's roster of corporate partners on Friday as a half dozen companies severed marketing ties with the gun advocacy organization.
The exodus of corporate names, ranging from a major insurer to car rental brands and a household moving company, occurred after the NRA launched a counter-offensive against a student-led campaign for tighter U.S. gun ownership laws.
At the same time, gun control activists are stepping up pressure on Amazon.com Inc and other online streaming platforms to drop the online video channel NRATV, featuring gun-friendly programming produced by the NRA.
Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, founded after 20 first-graders were shot and killed at a Connecticut school in 2012, sent letters to Apple Inc, AT&T Inc, Amazon, Alphabet Inc's Google and Roku Inc on Friday, asking them to drop NRATV from their platforms.
"We have been just disgusted by NRATV since its beginning," Shannon Watts, founder of the Moms Demand Action group, told Reuters. "It tries to pit Americans against one another, all in an attempt to further their agenda of selling guns."
Corporate Partners
Common Sense
Oregon
Fueled by anguished voices in the aftermath of the Florida high school shooting, Oregon's Legislature on Thursday banned people convicted of stalking and domestic violence or under restraining orders from buying or owning firearms and ammunition.
The passage of the bill by the state Senate on a 16-13 vote appears to mark the first time a state legislature has passed a gun-control measure since the Feb. 14 shooting in Parkland, Florida, said Anne S. Teigen, a criminal justice expert with the National Conference of State Legislatures in Denver. The measure was introduced before the Florida slayings.
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown had lobbied for the bill, telling a Senate committee this week to hear the anguished voices rising in the aftermath of the Florida attack in which 17 people were killed. The Democratic governor said she intends to sign into law the measure that the House earlier approved to protect victims of domestic violence.
A group led by former Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who survived a 2011 shooting that left her with a brain injury, applauded the Legislature's passing of the so-called boyfriend loophole bill.
The bill expands those who could be banned from owning guns and ammunition after a conviction, adding stalking as a qualifying crime, and adding those who are under a restraining order. Supporters said the bill closed a loophole in a 2015 law that excluded some abusers, such as boyfriends who abuse partners they don't live with.
Oregon
'Oh boy'
Bald Spot
Donald Trump (R-Pendejo) has a bald spot and it evidently annoys him.
The former reality television star, who is very aware of his appearance, smirked on Friday when he saw himself on a screen as he spoke to the Conservative Political Action Conference.
"What a nice picture that is. Look at that. I'd love to watch that guy speak," said Trump, drawing friendly laughter from a crowd of cheering supporters.
Then he seemed to notice a spot on the back of his head with thinning hair. He turned around and moved his hands around his elaborately dyed, comb-over coiffure, seemingly pantomiming the movements needed to assemble it each day.
"Oh, boy," he said, facing the crowd again. "I try like hell to hide that bald spot, folks. I work hard at it."
Bald Spot
"Amnesty Boxes"
Las Vegas Airport
Tourists catching a flight out of Sin City can now dump their leftover legal marijuana in metal containers set up at the airport.
The 10 green bins dubbed "amnesty boxes" prevent federal transportation agents from finding pot on passengers during security screenings. The drug is legal in Nevada but still banned by the U.S. government.
The containers were installed last week following a county ban on marijuana possession and advertising at McCarran International Airport, aiming to keep it in compliance with federal law. They are bolted to the ground and designed so marijuana and prescription drugs can only be dropped in, not taken out.
The boxes are something travelers may have seen before - at least two airports in Colorado, where recreational marijuana is also legal, offer amnesty boxes.
A contractor, not police, will initially empty the boxes multiple times per week and then adjust the schedule as usage patterns develop.
Las Vegas Airport
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.
1. Bruno Mars; $3,411,530; $102.82.
2. Guns N' Roses; $1,817,659; $137.93.
3. Lady Gaga; $1,630,947; $105.96.
4. Dead & Company; $1,590,747; $107.73.
5. Jay-Z; $1,455,733; $102.14.
6. Depeche Mode; $1,209,285; $80.82.
7. Little Mix; $1,088,062; $55.55.
8. Foo Fighters; $1,007,048; $90.55.
9. The Killers; $930,256; $71.95.
10. Trans-Siberian Orchestra; $889,185; $60.45.
11. Enrique Iglesias / Pitbull; $871,820; $94.09.
12. Scorpions; $821,175; $106.93.
13. Imagine Dragons; $791,950; $64.20.
14. André Rieu; $668,782; $91.69.
15. Chris Stapleton; $648,472; $50.63.
16. Ozuna; $616,120; $73.59.
17. Janet Jackson; $580,735; $72.90.
18. Queens Of The Stone Age; $528,384; $54.11.
19. Fall Out Boy; $523,321; $59.30.
20. Arcade Fire; $521,851; $56.56.
Global Concert Tours
In Memory
Nanette Fabray
Nanette Fabray, a Tony Award winner at 28 and the TV moms of The Mary Tyler Moore Show and One Day at a Time in the 1970s, died Thursday at her Palos Verdes, CA home. She was 97, and her death was confirmed by her son, Dr. Jamie MacDougall.
Fabray's stage successes were many and spanned decades. She won the Tony at 28 for the Alan Jay Lerner/Kurt Weill show Love Life, followed by Jule Styne/Sammy Cahn's High Button Shoes. Other stage credits in the 1940s and '50s included By Jupiter, My Dear Public, Jackpot, Bloomer Girl, Arms and the Girl and Make a Wish (1951).
By the 1950s, though, she was well known to TV audiences for her big-grinning performances on Caesar's Hour, for which she won two Emmy Awards. She starred in her own 1961 sitcom The Nanette Fabray Show (aka Yes, Yes Nanette).
Although she'd appeared in film as early as 1939 (in a bit part opposite Bette Davis in The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex), her sole feature film hit was 1953's The Band Wagon.
But perhaps even more than her '50s comic counterpart Imogene Coca, Fabray remained a familiar TV presence well into the next several decades. In addition to The Mary Tyler Moore Show (Moore repeatedly credited Fabray for her comic, hiccuping crying style, and shared just such a scene in an episode), she appeared on One Day at a Time, The Carol Burnett Show and numerous other variety shows of the era. In a memorable episode of Maude, she played an old friend of the title character who'd suffered a stroke. She shared screen time with her real-life niece, Shelley Fabares (singer of "Johnny Angel") on Coach.
Fabray's second husband, screenwriter Ranald MacDougall, died in 1973. She is survived by her son and two grandchildren.
Nanette Fabray
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