from Bruce
Anecdotes
Christmas
• When she was a child, E.L. Konigsburg, author of From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, could not sing well. Her elementary school class was divided into bluebirds and redbirds. The bluebirds sang, and the redbirds listened. Young Elaine was a redbird. However, at Christmas, the redbirds were allowed to sing carols. Young Elaine wanted to sing, so she did, but because she was Jewish, whenever a carol referred to “Jesus” or “Christ,” she hummed.
• When Ivan Jadan, the premier lyric tenor of the Bolshoi Opera from 1928-1941, was three years old, he received a beautiful toy horse on wheels for a Christmas present. He had been taught to keep himself and his possessions clean, so one day soon after Christmas, he grabbed a brush and wheeled his horse to the river to wash it. Unfortunately, his horse was made of papier-mâché, and after he had washed it, nothing was left but the wheels.
• On Christmas day, 1911, artist Louise Bourgeois was born in Paris. Of course, everyone was celebrating Christmas, and the doctor who delivered Louise told her very apologetic mother, “Madame Bourgeois, really, you are ruining my festivity.”
• When Isaac Newton was born on Christmas Day, 1642, the two women helping his mother thought he would die quickly, so when they went out to get him medicine, they didn’t hurry back. Instead, they sat on a wall and rested.
Couples
• Stand-up comedian Fran Capo made her fiancée learn what it was like to be a stand-up comedian before they were married. He killed the first time he did his act, so she made him do it again. This time, he bombed. Figuring that he knew what the extremes of a stand-up’s life were like, she said, “OK, now you can stop.” She also made him appear in a movie with her — they both were extras, and he was made up as a punk carrying a doll penetrated by a knife. They took a photograph together, which he sent to his mother with the note, “This is the girl I am going to marry.” Ms. Capo says, “She was thrilled.”
• Norman Lear, who revolutionized television sitcoms in the 1970s, wanted to propose to his then-girlfriend, Lyn, as they were vacationing in Kauai. She was very relaxed, lying in a hammock, and Mr. Lear knew he shouldn’t disturb her, but he was so nervous he decided to propose right then. Unfortunately, although he is a writer, the right words would not come to him. He said, with increasing desperation, “How can I show you? How can I tell you? WHAT CAN I DO?” Lyn, who was busy relaxing, replied, “You can leave me the f — k alone.”
• Hispanic movie actor Antonio Banderas has been successful at avoiding the stereotype of the Latin lover in Hollywood, although he is handsome, successful, and sexy. In real life, he has sometimes been unsuccessful in his pursuit of females. Once, he got down on one knee and declared his love for a girl, and she ignored him. (Of course, he was only five years old then.)
• One of ballerina Darci Kistler’s best roles has been that of Princess Aurora in Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty. When she first learned that she had gotten the role, her mother told her, “Now your prince will come.” A few months afterward, Ms. Kistler married dancer Peter Martins.
• Lesbian comedian Suzy Berger tells audiences that on her answering machine is this message: “You’re reached the home of Suzy Berger and Jodie Foster.” When the audience members laugh, she stares at them and says, “It could happen.”
Daughters
• As the author of the Harry Potter books, J.K. Rowling frequently travels from book signing to book signing. However, often she is too busy signing her autograph and meeting with her fans to see the sights in some of the places she visits. During a trip to Seattle, Jessica, her six-year-old daughter, was gleeful because she was able to go up in the Space Needle and her mother couldn’t because she was too busy.
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Presenting
Michael Egan
U.S.A. said:
wrote:
In memory.
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION
BANDCAMP MUSIC
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION OF BANDCAMP MUSIC
Music: "Blue Birds"
Album: WORLDPOP
Artist: Ronja Maltzahn
Artist Location: Osnabrück, Germany
Info: “Ronja started writing songs when she was 12; instead of diary writing she put her heart into melodies. She grew up in a small town in Germany and soon was taken by curiosity to travel the world. Now she has travelled over four continents and writes songs in seven languages, gathering inspiration from all over the planet.”
The album has “fifteen songs and one poem in English, German, French, Russian and Spanish, recorded by 32 musicians and illustrated by 17 visual artists for a colourful booklet gallery. The album was recorded in Germany, mixed by Grammy award winner Sebastian Perkal in Argentina, and mastered in San Francisco.”
Price: €1 (EURO) for track; €9 (EURO) for 16-track album
Genre: Pop
Links:
WORLDPOP
Ronja Maltzahn on Bandcamp
Ronja Maltzahn on YouTube
Other Links:
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David Bruce's Blog #1
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David Bruce has over 140 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
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Michelle in AZ
Reader Suggestion
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Enjoy!
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Michael Egan
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Reader Comment
Current Events
Linda >^..^<
We are all only temporarily able bodied.
Thanks, Linda!
that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
The cloudy weather seems to have completely confounded the defective rooster - he missed the dawn but really celebrated the sun peaking out mid-afternoon.
Was watching local news and the weatherbabe was having trouble with the graphics loading, so she stepped off camera to
do it manually, but the equipment wasn't cooperating.
Poor thing blurted "C'mon baby Jesus, help me out!"
New phrase to me - think it'd make an excellent needlepoint.
Vocabulary, Lightning Round Added
National Spelling Bee
The Scripps National Spelling Bee is undergoing a major overhaul to ensure it can identify a single champion, adding vocabulary questions and a lightning-round tiebreaker to this year’s pandemic-altered competition.
The 96-year-old bee has in the past included vocabulary on written tests but never in the high-stakes oral competition rounds, where one mistake eliminates a speller. The only previous tiebreaker to determine a single champion was a short-lived extra written test that never turned out to be needed.
The changes, announced this week, amount to a new direction for the bee under executive director J. Michael Durnil, who started in the job earlier this year.
Both new elements, however, also signal a departure from what for many observers is the core appeal of the bee: watching schoolchildren who have such mastery of roots and language patterns that they can figure out how to spell the trickiest words in the dictionary, even if they’ve never heard them before.
The 2020 bee was canceled because of the pandemic, the first time since World War II that the bee wasn’t on the calendar. This year’s event will be mostly virtual, and the in-person finals on July 8 have been moved from the bee’s longtime home in the Washington area to an ESPN campus in Florida.
National Spelling Bee
Too ‘Woke’
Di$ney World
A self-described “Christian Republican” has been mocked on social media for criticising Disney World by claiming the theme park is too “woke”.
Jonathan VanBoskerck, from Las Vegas, Nevada, published an op-ed in The Orlando Sentinel on Friday, explaining why his family is “strongly rethinking our commitment to Disney”.
Mr VanBoskerck explained that he and his family holiday at Disney World every year, but claimed that “the more Disney moves away from the values and vision of Walt Disney, the less Disney World means to me.
Mr VanBoskerck, who describes himself as “a Christian and a conservative Republican,” went on to claim in the op-ed that “Walt Disney used his corporation to express his patriotism during World War II and his pro-capitalism beliefs afterward.
Mr VanBoskerck also took aim at Disney allowing cast members “to display tattoos, wear inclusive uniforms and display inclusive haircuts. Disney did all of this in the name of allowing cast members to express themselves.”
Di$ney World
Not Going Forward
Comedy Series
ABC has passed on the untitled Alec Baldwin/Kelsey Grammer multi-camera comedy. The decision was made after the network’s executives saw the finished pilot episode.
The project, starring Baldwin, Grammer and Alec Mapa, had a straight-to-series order. The studio behind the comedy, 20th Television, is now shopping the pilot, written by Modern Family’s Chris Lloyd and Vali Chandrasekaran and directed by James Burrows, to other networks and streamers.
The high-profile comedy landed at ABC in November, a couple of weeks before the regime change at the network, with Hulu’s Craig Erwich taking over programming at ABC and the network’s Karey Burke becoming head of 20th TV. There have been multiple scripts from top auspices with big commitments bought under Burke that got a pass from ABC’s new regime this season.
The Baldwin/Grammer half-hour had a straight-to-series pickup for the 2021-22 season, and I hear a writers room was assembled a couple of months ago and has been working on scripts. Like with all series orders, the network had an option not to go forward with the project after the pilot episode. The move is associated with significant kill fees to the creative and on-screen talent.
The untitled comedy follows three men — played by Grammer, Baldwin and Mapa — who were roommates in their 20s until their warring egos drove them apart. They reunite decades later for one more run at the lives they’ve always wanted. The sitcom had been eyed as a potential companion to ABC’s flagship comedy series, the multi-camera The Conners.
Comedy Series
Even More
‘NCIS'
They will join the mothership NCIS series, which was recently renewed for next season, its 19th. The addition of NCIS: Hawaii will fill the void from the pending departure of NCIS: New Orleans, which is wrapping its seven-season run. All NCIS series are produced by CBS Studios.
With the pickup of NCIS: Hawaii, CBS will be launching new installments of its three biggest procedural drama franchises of the past two decades next season, CSI: Vegas, NCIS: Hawaii and FBI: International.
NCIS: LA was the only established, highly rated CBS drama series that was not part of the recent mass renewal at CBS, which included a pickup for NCIS with star/executive producer Mark Harmon set to come back.
The omission simply was due to some deals not being finalized. Those have now been completed, with stars LL Cool J and Chris O’Donnell both set to return. Also back as executive producer/showrunner is R. Scott Gemmill.
With NCIS: Hawaii, CBS Studios would utilize the extensive production base on the islands built for Hawaii Five-O. While that series was still on the air, CBS added a second Hawaii-based drama series from CBS Studios, Magnum P.I., which would create potential crossover opportunities with NCIS: Hawaii. NCIS: Los Angeles previously did a Hawaiian episode as part of a 2012 crossover episode with Hawaii Five-O. It featured stars LL Cool J and O’Donnell visiting the 50th state as part of a case.
‘NCIS'
Rafael Ridiculed
‘Gaslighting 101’
Rafael "Ted" Cruz (R-Cancunt) has been accused of “gaslighting” for saying Republicans never tried to “rig the game” by altering the size of the Supreme Court, a response to Democrats introducing legislation to expand the court to 13 judges.
The Republican senator for Texas was accused of contradicting his stance from 2016, when late Justice Antonin Scalia died unexpectedly and Mr Cruz endorsed an unprecedented partisan blockade in the Supreme Court to insist that the high court have eight members for 11 months.
The criticism came after Mr Cruz, along with fellow Repulicans Lindsey Graham and Marsha Blackburn, held a press conference in front of the Supreme Court on Thursday and accused Democrats of a “power grab” by introducing the legislation.
"You didn’t see Republicans, when we had control of the Senate, try to rig the game. You didn’t see us try to pack the court," he said.
Mr Cruz accused Democrats of being “fundamentally corrupt” by trying to change the rules to “stay in power.”
‘Gaslighting 101’
'Dangerous' Comments
GQP Sen.
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) is facing criticism after suggesting there's something "suspicious" about there being a "big push" to ensure Americans get vaccinated against COVID-19.
The Republican senator spoke about COVID-19 vaccines during an interview with conservative radio host Vicki McKenna, seeming to float the idea of a nefarious motivation behind the urging of all adults to get vaccinated in order to put an end to the pandemic, per Forbes.
"The science tells us that vaccines are 95 percent effective, so if you have a vaccine, quite honestly, what do you care if your neighbor has one or not?" Johnson said. "I mean, what is it to you? ... Why is [there] this big push to make sure everybody gets a vaccine?"
Health experts would likely tell Johnson that Americans should care because a certain percentage of the population must receive a COVID-19 vaccine in order to achieve herd immunity in the United States. But the Republican senator went on to criticize the idea of Americans needing to "carry a card to prove that they've been vaccinated so they can participate in society" and then added, without elaborating, "I'm getting highly suspicious of what's happening here." Johnson also suggested the vaccine's distribution should have been "limited" to vulnerable populations.
Johnson's comments came during an interview that opened with him saying it "blows me away" that he's "accused of being anti-science."
GQP Sen.
What Climate Change?
Mexico
Drought conditions now cover 85% of Mexico, and residents of the nation's central region said Thursday that lakes and reservoirs are simply drying up, including the country’s second-largest body of fresh water.
The mayor of Mexico City said the drought was the worst in 30 years, and the problem can be seen at the reservoirs that store water from other states to supply the capital.
Some of them, like the Villa Victoria reservoir west of the capital, are at one-third of their normal capacity, with a month and a half to go before any significant rain is expected.
The capital's 9 million inhabitants rely on reservoirs like Villa Victoria and two others — which together are at about 44% capacity — for a quarter of their water; most of the rest comes from wells within city limits. But the city’s own water table is dropping and leaky pipes waste much of what is brought into the city.
Farther to the west, in Michoacan state, the country is at risk of losing its second-largest lake, Lake Cuitzeo. About 75% of the lake bed is now dry, said Alberto Gómez-Tagle, a biologist and researcher who chairs the Natural Resources Institute of the University of Michoacán.
Mexico
Discovers Lost Frescoes
Uffizi Gallery
The Uffizi Gallery in Florence used the winter COVID shutdown to push ahead with renovations, discovering lost frescoes that will greet visitors when the leading repository of Italian Renaissance art reopens on May 4.
Uffizi director Eike Schmidt said the six months of closure were put to good use: renovating 14 new rooms that will open to the public next month, and discovering frescoes that would otherwise have remained hidden.
The previously hidden frescoes include a life-size figure of a young Cosimo II de Medici — part of the Renaissance family that commissioned the Uffizi — dating from the 1600s, as well as decorative plant motifs from the 1700s on the walls and ceiling of nearby rooms.
They are located in the museum’s west wing, which is where the new visitors’ entrance will be when the Uffizi reopens.
Workers also completed restoration on new rooms dedicated to 16th Century high and late Renaissance art from central and northern Italy, beyond Tuscany. They complete the sweep through art history from the Middle Ages with Giotto, to the Renaissance masters Botticelli, Raphael and Michelangelo, beyond to the counter-reformation and Venetian galleries.
Uffizi Gallery
Arctic Hybrids
'Pizzly' Bears
Endangered polar bears are breeding with grizzly bears, creating hybrid “pizzly” bears, and it's being driven by climate change, scientists say.
As the world warms and Arctic sea ice thins, starving polar bears are being driven ever further south, where they meet grizzlies, whose ranges are expanding northwards. And with that growing contact between the two species comes more mating, and therefore increased sightings of their hybrid offspring.
With features that could give them an edge in warming northern habitats, some scientists speculate that the pizzlies, or "grolars", could be here to stay.
Grizzly bears and polar bears only diverged 500,000 to 600,000 years ago, so the two species can mate and produce viable offspring. Observations made in captivity and a study conducted in the wild also suggest that the hybrids are fertile and have themselves produced young.
Wild sightings of hybrid pizzly bears began in 2006, when a hunter shot what he thought was a polar bear in the Northwest Territories of the Canadian Arctic.
'Pizzly' Bears
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