Garrison Keillor: Post from the Host
Q. Are services cancelled at Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibly?
A: Services are not cancelled at Our Lady but church is cancelled at LW Lutheran. No wine at communion, just wafers. Pastor Liz is relieved of the need for a homily that explains this plague. Father Wilmer's homilies have always been short and inscrutable. It's a solemn Mass with everyone sitting seven feet apart.
Mary Beard: "Who is the 'Draco' in 'Draconian measures'?" (TLS)
That in other words is the "modern" Draco: the hard-line, and indeed rather too hard-line, legislator, whose response to anyone stepping a little out of line is to come down on them like a ton of bricks (or worse). Probably this is no closer to the "real" seventh-century-BCE Draco than all the stuff about the franchise and military equipment (Plutarch was writing about 700 years later); but that is how he has been bequeathed to history!
Mary Beard: Coronavirus: your questions asked! (TLS)
This isn't meant to trivialize our current crisis. Pandemics are not really a good subject for banter. But there are some questions, large and small, that don't seem to be getting asked, let alone answered. And I'm not talking about the old chestnut of stockpiling loo paper, a phenomenon that I have never understood - equipment for wiping your bottom is something that can easily be improvised, ever if it isn't quite as super-soft as the purpose-made product. (Old copies of the TLS would do just fine …)
Mary Beard: Women and wishful thinking? (TLS)
Time magazine's "Man of the Year" which has been running as a cover feature since 1927 has often been precisely that, Man, despite the rebranding to "Person of the Year" in 1999. A handful of women did sneak in before the rebrand (including Wallis Simpson and Queen Elizabeth II), even after it they have been thin on the ground (spreading not very much further than Melinda Gates, jointly with Bill and Bono, Angela Merkel and Greta Thunberg). So it is a nice idea for Time to run a feature, with a series of mock-up covers starring the women who were overlooked.
Mary Beard: Who invented the handshake? (TLS)
It is often when you are told not to do something, that you start to wonder why you do it anyway. And - as we move to elbow nudges - so it is with the handshake. Where did the custom begin? The standard answer being bandied around (thanks to Wiki I suspect) is that it goes back to ancient Greece. But does it?
Hisarlik, often spelled Hissarlik, is the Turkish name for an ancient city located in what is known historically as Anatolia (now Turkey). After many decades of scientific and literary study, the site is universally accepted as the location of what ancient city?
A binnacle is a waist-high case or stand on the deck of a ship, generally mounted in front of the helmsman, in which navigational instruments are placed for easy and quick reference as well as to protect the delicate instruments. Its traditional purpose was to hold the ship's magnetic compass, mounted in gimbals to keep it level while the ship pitched and rolled. A binnacle may be subdivided into sections and its contents typically include one or more compasses and an oil lamp or other light source. Other devices such as a sand timer for estimating speed may have been stored in the binnacle as well.
With the introduction of iron-clad ships the magnetic deviation observed in compasses became more severe. Methods of compensation by arranging iron or magnetic objects near the binnacle were developed. In 1854, a new type of binnacle was patented by John Gray of Liverpool which directly incorporated adjustable correcting magnets on screws or rack and pinions. This was improved again when Lord Kelvin patented in the 1880s another system of compass and which incorporated two compensating spheres. These are colloquially known as "Kelvin's balls" in the UK, and "navigator's balls" in the United States. Unlike most display binnacles today, which have the balls painted red and green to represent port and starboard side of the vessel, the balls were painted black or some other uniform color. The Royal Maritime museum at Greenwich, London, has an extensive collection of binnacles in correct colours.
The ship's "binnacle list" is the medical department's report of personnel at sick bay, excused from that day's duty.
Source
Mark. was first, and correct, with:
A binnacle is a structure which houses a ship's compass. Therefore, one
would be found on the deck of a ship.
Randall wrote:
On the deck of a ship
Alan J answered:
On a Ship.
Mac Mac said:
On a ship
Dave responded:
On the deck of a ship. That was my guess, only because the term sounds nautical, and the Google confirms my hunch.
Cal in Vermont replied:
Boats and cars.
zorch said:
You find a binnacle on a sailing ship. It's connected to the crap-halyard.
A binnacle connects the crap-halyard to the jimbob.
Jim from CA, retired to ID, wrote:
Grounded at least 30 days....what fun...A binnacle is a waist-high case or stand on the deck of a ship, generally mounted in front of the helmsman, in which navigational instruments are placed
Deborah responded:
A binnacle is a waist-high case or stand on the deck of a ship, generally mounted in front of the helmsman, in which navigational instruments are placed for easy and quick reference as well as to protect the delicate instruments.
Greetings from locked-down CA. I hope this action keeps people safe.
My husband was in line at our local grocery store 10 minutes before it opened at 6 a.m. People were polite and stayed 6' apart. He missed the last package of toilet paper by seconds. We don't need it yet; just thinking ahead since the supply chain will be significantly impacted for some time after this issue has passed.
Daniel in The City replied:
On a ship
Kenn B wrote:
On a ship or a boat...
John I from Hawai`i says,
on a ship
Joe ( -- Vote Blue, No Matter Who -- ) answered:
The same place you would find a barnacle, only above water.
Binge watching Battlestar Galactica, the one where Starbuck is a woman.
Roy, socially distancing in Tyler, TX took the day off.
mj took the day off.
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I know the answer...
~~~~~
• As a concert pianist, Denis Matthews had to practice long and hard. Following breakfast one day, he went to his music room and began practicing the Brahms B flat Concerto. Several hours later, when it was his young daughter's bedtime, he was still practicing. As she was saying good night to her father, she said, "If ever I do music when I grow up, I'm going to do it for FUN!"
• Elizabeth Soderstrom brought her children to see her in the opera The Mines of Sulphur. Her two oldest children loved it - especially the part when her character opened her cloak to show the spots that indicated that she had the plague. Unfortunately, her youngest child was terrified and for a few weeks kept looking at people to see if they had spots.
• When he was 11 years old, Leonard Bernstein started taking piano lessons. He immediately loved the piano, and sometimes early in the morning, he would get out of bed and play. His father once told him, "Lenny, don't you know it's two o'clock?" Young Leonard replied, "I know. But the sounds are in my head and I just have to get them out."
• Fritz, the brother of lieder singer Lotte Lehmann, was a terror when he and she were young, although he became very supportive of her and her career when they grew up. As a young boy, he used to pretend to be an Indian, kidnap her dolls, scalp them, paint the roots of the dolls' hair red, and hang them dripping from his belt.
• As a young girl, comedian Beatrice Lillie got one of her first laughs while in church. She was singing in a choir, when a woman beside her passed gas loudly during a pause in the music. Young Beatrice turned to the woman and said, "Well, really!"
• Entertainer Terri Balash, a star of Godspell, enjoyed performing even as a youngster. When she was six years old, she sometimes walked into her parents' parties and announced, "Okay, I'm going to entertain now, so everybody listen."
Christmas
• When in grade school, future lieder singer Lotte Lehmann was insulted when one of her compositions was returned to her marked, "Judging from the accomplishments hitherto displayed in school, I doubt the authenticity of this work." In other words, her teacher thought young Lotte was plagiarizing because the quality of the composition was so good. Therefore, young Lotte demanded that she be allowed to write another composition as the teacher watched her to make sure she was not plagiarizing. Her teacher told her to write about Christmas, she did so as he watched her, and she proved that she was capable of writing good, original compositions.
• Near Christmas, the Music Department of Colorado College in Colorado Springs performed Handel's Messiah, which was simulcast on the radio by station KKTV. The radio announcer was daydreaming when he suddenly realized that The Messiah was coming to an end, and he needed to play a record - quickly. He grabbed the first record he came across and put it on a turntable. The radio audience heard the end of The Messiah, the announcer identifying the station, and then a record playing "Happy Birthday to You."
Clothing
• When he was a child, singer James Brown's family was impoverished, and he was frequently sent home from school because his clothing was in such poor shape. In fact, one reason he began stealing was so he could have decent clothing. Of course, the stealing eventually led to his arrest. After being found guilty of stealing a car battery, he was sentenced to 8 to 16 years in prison.
• Pop singer Madonna was an original even as a schoolgirl. Like the other students, Madonna wore a uniform at school, but she kept her school locker stocked with colorful hair bows and socks so she could be different from her classmates.
While standing in line at the grocery store was struck with the thought that how many of us would have had polio if Lumpy and his money-grubbing weasels had been in charge?
Tonight, Saturday:
CBS begins the night with a RERUN'Hawaii Five-0', followed by a RERUN'SWAT', then '48 Hours'.
NBC opens the night with a RERUN'Ellen's Game Of Games', followed by 'Dateline'.
Of course, 'SNL' is a RERUN, with JJ Watts hosting, music by Clint Jones.
ABC starts the night with a RERUN'Shark Tank', followed by a RERUN'American Idol'.
The CW offers some local crap and some '2½ Men'.
Faux has a RERUN'Lego Masters', followed by a RERUN'9-1-1'.
MY has 2 hours 'TBA'.
A&E has 'Live PD', followed by a FRESH'Live PD: Rewind', then a FRESH'Live PD'.
AMC offers the movie 'The Hunger Games', followed by the movie 'The Hunger Games: Catching Fire'.
BBC -
[6:00AM] PLANET EARTH: BLUE PLANET II - Blue Planet Now: Wonders of the Reef
[7:00AM] PLANET EARTH: BLUE PLANET II - Blue Planet Now: Hammerheads and Humpbacks
[8:00AM] PLANET EARTH: THE HUNT - The Hardest Challenge
[9:00AM] PLANET EARTH: THE HUNT - In The Grip of Seasons - Arctic
[10:00AM] PLANET EARTH: THE HUNT - Hide And Seek - Jungles
[11:00AM] PLANET EARTH: THE HUNT - Hunger At Sea - Oceans
[12:00PM] PLANET EARTH: THE HUNT - Nowhere To Hide - Plains
[1:00PM] PLANET EARTH: THE HUNT - Race Against Time - Coasts
[2:00PM] PLANET EARTH: SOUTH PACIFIC - Ocean of Islands
[3:00PM] PLANET EARTH: SOUTH PACIFIC - Castaways
[4:00PM] PLANET EARTH: SOUTH PACIFIC - Endless Blue
[5:00PM] PLANET EARTH: SOUTH PACIFIC - Ocean of Volcanoes
[6:00PM] PLANET EARTH: SOUTH PACIFIC - Strange Islands
[7:00PM] PLANET EARTH: THE BEST OF BLUE PLANET II - The Best of Blue Planet II
[9:00PM] SEASONAL WONDERLANDS - Svalbard
[10:25PM] PLANET EARTH: SOUTH PACIFIC - Ocean of Islands
[11:25PM] PLANET EARTH: SOUTH PACIFIC - Castaways
[12:25AM] PLANET EARTH: SOUTH PACIFIC - Endless Blue
[1:25AM] PLANET EARTH: SOUTH PACIFIC - Ocean of Volcanoes
[2:25AM] PLANET EARTH: SOUTH PACIFIC - Strange Islands
[3:35AM] SEASONAL WONDERLANDS - Svalbard
[5:00AM] PLANET EARTH: THE HUNT - The Hardest Challenge (ALL TIMES EST)
Bravo has the movie 'Walk The Line', followed by the movie 'Dirty Dancing'.
Comedy Central has the movie 'Dumb & Dumber', followed by the movie 'Shrek', then the movie 'Tommy Boy'.
FX has the movie 'Kingsman: The Golden Circle', followed by the movie 'X-Men: Apocalypse'.
History has 'Ancient Aliens', another 'Ancient Aliens', followed by a FRESH'Ancient Aliens', then a FRESH'The UnXplained'.
IFC -
[6:30A] Mystery Science Theater 3000 - Catalina Caper
[8:50A] Monty Python's Flying Circus - It's a Living
[9:25A] Monty Python's Flying Circus - Full Frontal Nudity
[10:05A] Monty Python's Flying Circus - The Naked Ant
[10:45A] Monty Python's Flying Circus - Untitled
[11:30A] Redemption
[1:45P] Mission: Impossible
[4:15P] Focus
[6:45P] Horrible Bosses
[9:00P] Old School
[11:00P] Horrible Bosses
[1:15A] The Princess Bride
[3:30A] Monty Python and the Holy Grail
[5:30A] The Three Stooges - Gents Without Cents (ALL TIMES EST)
Sundance -
[6:00am] The Andy Griffith Show
[6:30am] The Andy Griffith Show
[7:00am] The Andy Griffith Show
[7:30am] The Andy Griffith Show
[8:00am] The Andy Griffith Show
[8:30am] The Andy Griffith Show
[9:00am] The Andy Griffith Show
[9:30am] The Andy Griffith Show
[10:00am] The Andy Griffith Show
[10:30am] The Andy Griffith Show
[11:00am] Hogan's Heroes
[11:30am] Hogan's Heroes
[12:00pm] Hogan's Heroes
[12:30pm] Hogan's Heroes
[1:00pm] Hogan's Heroes
[1:30pm] Hogan's Heroes
[2:00pm] Hogan's Heroes
[2:30pm] Hogan's Heroes
[3:00pm] A Few Good Men
[6:00pm] Saving Private Ryan
[10:00pm] Saving Private Ryan
[2:00am] A Few Good Men
[5:00am] The Andy Griffith Show
[5:30am] Law & Order (ALL TIMES EST)
SyFy has the movie 'John Wick', followed by the movie 'John Wick: Chapter 2'.
Conan O'Brien's talk show is about to get iNteresting.
The late night host announced on Twitter that his TBS show, "Conan," will continue to be live amid the coronavirus pandemic, but noted the camera work will be vastly different.
"I am going back on the air Monday, March 30th. All my staff will work from home, I will shoot at home using an iPhone, and my guests will Skype," he tweeted on Thursday. "This will not be pretty, but feel free to laugh at our attempt."
Conan is hardly the only late night host who's been forced to get creative in order to continue broadcasting. Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert have all been doing their shows from home while isolating themselves and practicing social distancing. Likewise, Whoopi Goldberg, who battled double pneumonia last year, hosted "The View" while self-quarantined at home. On "Today" Savannah Guthrie hosted from her basement after coming down with a mild sore throat and runny nose.
President Donald Trump (R-Sociopath) went off on NBC News White House correspondent Peter Alexander after he pressed him on what he would say to Americans who are frightened by the coronavirus.
"What do you say to Americans that are scared?" Alexander asked.
"I'd say you are a terrible reporter," Trump responded. "I think that's a very nasty question, and I think that's a very bad signal that you're putting out to the American people." He then blasted NBC News and its parent company, Comcast, in general.
After his outburst, Trump then called on another reporter in the room - who happened to be Sean Spicer, his former press secretary. Spicer now hosts a show for Newsmax.
Later, other correspondents asked Trump why he was going after a journalist at a briefing during a national crisis, and what message it sent to the rest of the world. "I think Peter is not a good journalist when it comes to fairness," Trump said after being pressed by CNN's Kaitlan Collins.
Designer Christian Siriano's high-end looks are more common on runways than in hospital operating rooms, but that could be about to change, at least temporarily, in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.
Siriano volunteered his team to make masks, in response to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's call for help from the public.
Cuomo described his state's "critical need" for gloves, gowns and masks. He seemed desperate for help, explaining that the state would "pay a premium and offer funding," and pleading with people to call in if they had unused supplies.
That's when Siriano stepped up. The Project Runway alum said his sewing team was working from home and could help.
Meghan Markle and Prince Harry's decision to step down as senior members of the royal family was met with surprise and confusion. But the move actually isn't that shocking-especially when you think about the tabloid scrutiny they were under daily while living in the U.K.
The most recent example of this involves actor Simon Rex (Scary Movie 3), who alleges a British tabloid offered him a lot of money to lie about his relationship with Markle. "Nothing happened [between Meghan and me]," Rex told the Hollywood Raw podcast. "We never even kissed. It was just, like, we hung out once in a very non-datey way. She was just someone I had met on a TV show and, like, we got lunch. That was the extent of it."
But apparently this harmless tidbit was enough for the tabloids to pounce on Rex. When news of his platonic past with Markle broke, the press came knocking. "The tabloids, actually, when that story broke, a couple British tabloids offered to pay me a lot of money to say a lie that we actually hooked up," Rex said. "And dude. I said no to a lot of money because I didn't feel right lying and fucking up the royal fucking family…."
How much money, you ask? "It was a lot of money, man. I think they offered me, like, $70,000," Rex said.
How messed up, right? In a 2019 documentary, Markle admitted she didn't realize the extent of British tabloid culture when she started dating Prince Harry. Situations like the one Rex describes here were probably never on her radar.
A senior Republican senator appears to have issued a dire coronavirus warning to a group of business officials weeks before COVID-19 stormed onto US soil, but a senior aide contends the lawmaker has been raising such alarms about America's pandemic readiness for years.
A recording taken several weeks ago features the voice of a man who sounds like the Senate Intelligence Committee chairman telling members of the Tar Heel Circle and others about the then-coming virus during an exclusive luncheon event on Capitol Hill. That group is part of the North Carolina Society of Washington, DC, a private organisation that charges hefty dues to its members.
"There's one thing that I can tell you about this," the senator says in the recording. "It is much more aggressive in its transmission than anything that we have seen in recent history. It's probably more akin to the 1918 pandemic."
Mr Burr, at a time when fellow Republican Donald Trump was saying publicly he expected the virus would "maybe go away," then offered some inside advice to the group of business sector representatives.
"Every company should be cognisant of the fact you may have to alter your travel," he said on the recording, first obtained by NPR. "You may have to look at your employees and judge whether that trip that they're making to Europe is essential or whether it can be done on video conference. Why risk it?"
Early one morning in Cairo, volunteers paddle their kayaks across the Nile, fishing out garbage from the mighty waterway that gave birth to Egyptian civilisation but now faces multiple threats.
Egypt's lifeline since Pharaonic days and the source of 97 percent of its water is under massive strain from pollution and climate change and now the threat of a colossal dam being built far upstream in Ethiopia.
Undeterred, the flotilla of some 300 environmental activists do what they can -- in the past three years they say they have picked some 37 tonnes of cans, plastic bottles, disposable bags and other trash from the waters and shores along the Nile in Egypt.
But few waterways face greater strain than the 6,600-kilometre (4,100-mile) Nile, the basin of which stretches across 11 countries -- Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda.
No country is more reliant on the Nile than Egypt, whose teeming population has just passed 100 million people -- over 90 percent of whom live along the river's banks.
The Catholic Church on Friday granted forgiveness -- under certain conditions -- for the sins of the faithful struck by the novel coronavirus.
A decree published by the Vatican also covers healthcare workers and those who pray for their wellbeing. Relatives who care for their sick family members may also be forgiven.
The conditions include the sick saying a certain number of prayers or following important celebrations from a distance.
Those who pray for the caregivers' wellbeing must also read the Bible "for at least half an hour".
The decree was issued one day after Italy overtook China for the most number of deaths from the new illness.
Clay pots? Wooden spoons? Copper pots? Silver forks? What materials has man used for making kitchen utensils throughout history? A new study now sheds light on the use of kitchen utensils made of copper.
At first thought, you would not expect hundreds of years old bones from a medieval cemetery to be able to tell you very much - let alone anything about what kinds of kitchen utensils were used to prepare food.
But when you put such a bone in the hands of Professor Kaare Lund Rasmussen, University of Southern Denmark, the bone begins to talk about the past.
The research team has analyzed bones from 553 skeletons that are between 1200 and 200 years old. They all come from nine, now abandoned cemeteries in Jutland, Denmark and Northern Germany. The skeletons are today kept at Schloss Gottorf in Schleswig, Germany and at the University of Southern Denmark.
A pregnant cow who swam 4 miles (6.4 kilometers) to shore after being swept away by Hurricane Dorian in September has given birth to a "miracle" calf.
A photo of the "sea calf" was posted Monday on Facebook by Ranch Solutions, a group hired to return the pregnant cow back home to North Carolina's Cedar Island, 350 miles (560 kilometers) east of Charlotte. The cow, Dori, was one of three swept away by Dorian that were found in the state's Outer Banks, The Charlotte Observer reported.
The calf has one brown and one blue eye, Ranch Solutions said. Having differently colored eyes is a rare condition shared by various animals, including some wild horses.
Getting close to the mother and calf for a photo has been difficult, because they run at the sight of humans, Cedar Island resident Woody Hancock told McClatchy News group. "The wild cattle that lived on Cedar Island were not used to seeing humans or having them approach them," the state's National Park Service said.
When Hurricane Dorian generated an 8-foot (2-meter) "mini tsunami," it washed the calf's mother and dozens of other animals away, including 28 wild horses that died.
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