from Bruce
Anecdotes
Friends
• Ernestine Schumann-Heink had a problem when she first met Maurice Grau of the Metropolitan Opera Company — she did not have clothing fine enough for such an important meeting with such an important man. Fortunately, Lillian Nordica came to the rescue and lent her a silk dress — with a train — that made the necessary statement: The person wearing this dress is a prima donna. Later, Ms. Schumann-Heink embarrassed Ms. Nordica by thanking her publicly for the loan.
• Albert Einstein was a friend to the Curie family, including both Marie and her daughter, Irène Joliot-Curie. One day, Mr. Einstein and Ms. Joliot-Curie were talking about particle tracks, as Ms. Joliot-Curie’s daughter, Hélène, drew near them. Soon, young Hélène showed Mr. Einstein the “particle tracks” she had drawn. Mr. Einstein looked at the drawing, then told Ms. Joliot-Curie, “If you don’t watch out, she’ll become a theoretical physicist!” Hélène did.
• Tenors Richard Tucker and Luciano Pavarotti were friends. After a performance by Mr. Tucker, Mr. Pavarotti called to congratulate him, saying, “I just can’t believe it. I had to call you. You’re still the top tenor in the world — a phenomenon.” Whenever Mr. Tucker left a dressing room that would next be occupied by Mr. Pavarotti, he used to write on the mirror this message: “Buona fortuna.”
• Madame Giulietta Grisi once decided to commit suicide, so she ran to a river so she could drown herself. Fortunately, a friend followed her and convinced her not to drown herself — making the argument that she would be disheveled, muddy, and unglamorous when her body was fished out of the river.
• Children’s picture book creator Ezra Jack Keats never had children of his own, but that was OK because his friends had children. Often, he would ask a friend, “Can I come and see how children climb out of a pillowcase?” or “I’m going to the zoo — can I borrow a child?”
• Stan Laurel always had a great respect for his friend Oliver Hardy’s talents as a comedian. Whenever Mr. Laurel watched one of the great comedy team’s movies, he laughed at Mr. Hardy’s antics, not at his own.
Gays and Lesbians
• Some lesbians have unusual coming-out stories. One lesbian told her abusive stepfather that she was a lesbian, and he immediately told her to get out of the house or he would give her a beating worse than the ones he had previously given her. Her straight siblings decided to take advantage of the situation to also get out of an abusive home — her straight brother immediately told their abusive stepfather that he was gay and a month later her straight sister told him that she was a lesbian. The lesbian adds, “My stepdad started to catch on, though, when my mother told him she was a lesbertarian.”
• Lesbian comedian Kate Clinton has a niece named Grace. One day, Grace and a friend were playing together, and Grace’s mother heard Grace say, “Let’s pretend we’re gay!” Her friend asked, “What’s gay?” Grace explained, “It’s when two girls get together, dance, and have fun.” While watching the March on Washington in 1993, Grace asked her mother, “Now tell me again, Mom, why do ungay people not like Aunt Kate?”
Gifts
• Moravian soprano Maria Jeritza believed in causing a commotion and being talked about. When Beverly Sills was a child vocalist, she sang at a party where she met Ms. Jeritza, who presented her with a gold toothpick, saying, “You must become a character. You must make people talk about you. After we have all eaten, you pick your teeth with this gold toothpick, and you’ll see — everybody will be talking about you.”
• Diamond Jim Brady loved to eat. He once ate a box of chocolates that came from the small Boston firm of Page and Shaw. He loved the candy and ordered several hundred boxes for himself and as gifts for his friends. Unfortunately, the business was too small to handle such a large order. Therefore, Diamond Jim gave them an interest-free loan of $150,000 so they could expand their candy-making capacity.
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© Copyright Bruce D. Bruce; All Rights Reserved
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Presenting
Michael Egan
U.S.A. said:
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION
BANDCAMP MUSIC
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION OF BANDCAMP MUSIC
Music: "Walk Out"
Album: ALTERED SWEET: A TRIBUTE TO MATTHEW SWEET
Artist: Gretchen’s Wheel
Artist Location: Nashville, Tennessee
Record Company: Futureman Records
Record Company Location: Detroit, Michigan
Info: Bill Sammon, a fan, wrote, “A fine tribute album to one of my, and hopefully your, favorite songwriters. Just buy it. Favorite track: ‘Sick of Myself.’”
This is collection of various artists performing songs written by Matthew Sweet.
“Sidney Matthew Sweet
(born October 6, 1964) is an American rock singer-songwriter and musician who was part of the burgeoning music scene in Athens, Georgia, during the 1980s before gaining commercial success in the 1990s as a solo artist.” —
Wikipedia
“The Futureman finds and releases only the most vital and raw recordings from the field. He asks for no thanks or special notice. However, tip your hats or raise your glasses their way: Futureman Records, The Vanguard of the People.”
Price: $10 (USD) for 27-track album; tracks cannot be purchased separately
Genre: Singer-Songwriter
Links:
ALTERED SWEET
Futureman Records
Gretchen’s Wheel
Gretchen’s Wheel on YouTube
Other Links:
David Bruce's Amazon Author Page
David Bruce's Smashwords Page
David Bruce's Blog #1
David Bruce's Blog #2
David Bruce's Blog #3
David Bruce's Apple iBookstore
David Bruce has over 140 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
New Venture
Michael Egan
Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
Reader Comment
Current Events
Linda >^..^<
We are all only temporarily able bodied.
Thanks, Linda!
that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny day set on extra toasty.
70% Cast Ballots Early Or By Mail
Voters
More than two-thirds of all U.S. citizens of the voting age population participated in the 2020 presidential election, according to a new U.S. Census Bureau report, and 69% of those cast ballots by mail or early in-person voting — methods that Republicans in some states are curtailing.
That's an explosion in the use of mail and early voting compared to four years earlier, when just 40% of voters cast ballots that way. The change was in part a result of the pandemic, which prompted health officials to urge voters to stay away from crowded in-person polling places.
The figures are part of a Census Bureau survey of voters, released Thursday, that offers new details about the extraordinary turnout in the 2020 presidential race between Republican Donald Trump (R-Lock Him Up) and Democrat Joe Biden. In some experts' estimates, the election posted the highest turnout rate since 1900, before women had the right to vote.
Trump pointed to the high mail voting and early voting numbers to suggest that the election was rife with fraud and irregularities. Those false claims are now driving a GOP effort in several states to make mail voting harder and to trim the number of early voting days.
White people made up 71% of the people who voted, a 2% drop from four years earlier. Still, because white voters are the demographic with the highest rate of turnout, they had disproportionate power in the election — they are only 67% of U.S. citizens 18 and older, according to the Census.
Voters
False Allegations
Newsmax
Newsmax apologized on Friday for airing false allegations that an employee for Dominion Voting Systems manipulated machines or tallies on Election Day to the detriment of former President Donald Trump.
Eric Coomer, security director at the Colorado-based firm, in turn dropped Newsmax from a defamation lawsuit.
The conservative news network, in a statement published on its website and to be read on TV, said that while it aired the accusations against Coomer made by Trump's lawyers and supporters, it found no evidence that they were true.
“We would like to apologize for any harm that our reporting of the allegations against Dr. Coomer may have caused to Dr. Coomer and his family,” the network said. He said in his lawsuit that he had gone into hiding because of death threats.
Coomer's lawsuit also targets the Trump campaign, lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, columnist Michelle Malkin, the website Gateway Pundit, Colorado activist Joseph Oltmann and One America News Network. Those claims are continuing, a spokeswoman said.
Newsmax
Sequel At NBC
‘Night Court’
The new Night Court has set up a dream leading duo. The follow-up to the classic legal comedy series, which has been heating up for a pilot order at NBC for several weeks, will star Melissa Rauch and the original series’ co-star John Larroquette, reprising his Emmy-winning role, I have learned.
This marks the first post-The Big Bang Theory TV role for Rauch, the driving force behind the reboot, who initially was only set to executive produce for Warner Bros TV but decided to take on the lead role after reading the script, I hear. Reps for NBC and WBTV declined comment.
Written/executive produced by Dan Rubin based on the original series created by Reinhold Weege, the multi-camera Night Court centers on the unapologetic optimist judge Abby Stone (Rauch), daughter of the late Harry Stone, who follows in her father’s footsteps as she presides over the night shift of a Manhattan arraignment court and tries to bring order to its crew of oddballs and cynics, most notably former night court prosecutor Dan Fielding (Larroquette).
The original Night Court, which aired on NBC for nine seasons from 1984-92 and earned three Outstanding Comedy Series Emmy nominations, followed the proceedings during the night shift of a Manhattan municipal court, led by a young, unorthodox judge, Harold “Harry” T. Stone. He was played by Harry Anderson, who died in 2018 at age 65. Abby is a newly created character who was not part of the original show.
‘Night Court’
Germany To Return
Benin Bronzes
Germany is returning hundreds of artifacts known as Benin Bronzes that were mostly looted from western Africa by a British colonial expedition and subsequently sold to collections around the world, including German museums, authorities said Friday.
Foreign Minister Heiko Maas welcomed a deal reached with museums to work on a plan for the restitution of the artifacts together with Nigeria, calling it a “turning point in dealing with our colonial history.”
Germany’s minister for culture, Monika Gruetters, said the Benin Bronzes were a key test for the way the country deals with its colonial past.
A British colonial expedition looted vast numbers of treasures from the royal palace of the Kingdom of Benin in 1897, including numerous bas-reliefs and sculptures. Many of the artifacts ended up in the British Museum, though hundreds were also sold to other collections.
The Ethnological Museum in Berlin has one of the world’s largest collection of historical objects from the Kingdom of Benin, estimated to include about 530 items, including 440 bronzes.
Benin Bronzes
Oink
Duggar
Former reality TV star Josh Duggar faces charges of downloading and possessing child pornography under a federal indictment unsealed Friday.
Federal prosecutors announced the indictment a day after Duggar was arrested by U.S. Marshals in northwest Arkansas. Prosecutors said Duggar possessed the material, some of which depicts the sexual abuse of children under the age of 12, in May 2019.
Duggar, 33, pleaded not guilty at a hearing Friday. His attorneys said they planned to defend his case “aggressively and thoroughly.”
Duggar starred on TLC’s “19 Kids and Counting” until it was pulled from the network in 2015 over revelations Duggar had molested four of his sisters and a babysitter. Duggar’s parents said he had confessed to the fondling and apologized.
Duggar previously apologized for a pornography addiction and cheating on his wife who is pregnant with their seventh child.
Duggar
Scans Show
Medieval Skeletons
Cancer may have been a bigger menace in medieval times than previously assumed, new research this week suggests. The study, based on X-ray and CT scans of preserved bones, estimates that around one in every 10 residents of medieval Britain died with cancer in their body.
The first recorded accounts of cancer date back to Ancient Egypt more than 5,000 years ago. But it’s long been thought that cancer remained relatively rare in humans until modern times, in large part due to our longer lifespans. Other trends that began to emerge in the 18th century, like exposure to more environmental pollutants as industrialization expanded and the increased popularity of smoking, probably played a part, too.
But this new study, published Friday in the journal Cancer, suggests that cancer has been a regular feature of people’s lives for quite some time.
Researchers in the UK examined the skeletons of 143 people excavated from six medieval cemeteries located around the city of Cambridge; these people had died between the 6th and 16th centuries. They then analyzed the bones using medical imaging, looking closely for traces of advanced cancer that might not have appeared on the surface.
“We think the total proportion of the medieval population that probably suffered with a cancer somewhere in their body was between 9-14%,” said study author Piers Mitchell, a researcher from Cambridge University’s Department of Archaeology, in a statement released by the university.
Medieval Skeletons
Prehistoric Cattle Cult?
Saudi Arabia
Sprawling rectangular structures scattered across northwest Arabia and dating back more than 7,000 years may have been part of a prehistoric cattle cult, researchers have found.
More than 1,000 of the mysterious structures, referred to as mustatils (an Arabic word meaning "rectangle"), have been documented in Saudi Arabia. While their appearance varies, they are usually rectangular in shape and often consisting of two platforms connected by two walls. Archaeological work indicates that some of the mustatils had a chamber in the center made of stone walls surrounding an open area with a standing stone in the center.
The new research reinforces a theory proposed by other researchers that the mustatils had a ritualistic purpose and, in addition, provides evidence that they were part of a cattle cult.
"The mustatils of northwest Arabia represents the first large-scale, monumental ritual landscape anywhere in the world, predating Stonehenge by more than 2,500 years," Melissa Kennedy, assistant director of the Aerial Archaeology in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia project (AAKSA), said in a statement.
"These structures can now be interpreted as ritual installations dating back to the late sixth millennium B.C., with recent excavations revealing the earliest evidence for [a] cattle cult in the Arabian Peninsula," a team of researchers wrote in a paper published April 30 in the journal Antiquity.
Saudi Arabia
'Untouched' Bronze Age Tomb
Ireland
An ancient tomb thought to date back more than 3,000 years has been discovered in southwest Ireland by workmen carrying out land improvements on a farm.
Archaeologists say the tomb on the Dingle Peninsula of County Kerry is "untouched" and that some of its unusual features, including a mysterious oval-shaped stone inside, indicate that it could be an early example of an ancient burial.
The tomb appears to be a "cist" or chamber tomb, consisting of an underground stone-lined structure built to contain one or several burials and capped with a large stone, Ronan Casey, a spokesperson for Ireland's National Monuments Service, told Live Science.
Ireland's national broadcaster RTE reported that the tomb was discovered last week when a mechanical digger overturned the large stone slab above it, revealing the chamber beneath. A closer inspection revealed an adjoining sub-chamber at what appears to be the front of the tomb.
Archaeologists estimate the tomb dates to between about 2,500 and 4,500 years ago, during the Bronze Age in Ireland. But further investigations will be needed before they can narrow down its age, Casey said..
Ireland
Not A Male Priest
Egyptian Mummy
Polish researchers examining an ancient Egyptian mummy that they expected to be a male priest were surprised when X-rays and computer tests revealed instead it was a mummy of a woman who had been seven months pregnant.
The researchers said Thursday it’s the world’s first known case of such a well-preserved ancient mummy of a pregnant woman.
The mummy arrived in Warsaw in 1826 and the inscription on the coffin named a male priest. No examination until the current one had disproved the belief that it was a male.
“Our first surprise was that it has no penis, but instead it has breasts and long hair, and then we found out that it’s a pregnant woman,” Marzena Ozarek-Szilke, an anthropologist and archeologist, told The Associated Press. “When we saw the little foot and then the little hand (of the fetus), we were really shocked,”
They estimated the woman was between 20 and 30 years old and said the size of the baby’s skull suggested she was 26 to 28 weeks pregnant.
Egyptian Mummy
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