Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Paul Krugman: Deficit Man and the 2020 Election (NY Times)
The Trump bump probably peaked too early.
Ryan Bort: "'Send Her Back' Is Trump's Most Honest Campaign Slogan" (Rolling Stone)
It's what "Make America Great Again" was always really about.
Jonathan Chait: "Trump Says He Stopped the 'Send Her Back' Chant. (He Didn't.)" (NY Mag)
"I was not happy with it - I disagree with it," he told reporters. But why, he was asked, didn't he stop the "send her back" chant? "I think I did," he replied. "I started speaking very quickly." That is absolutely false. When the chant begins, Trump behaves the way he often does when he crowd responds to his rhetoric. He pulls back visibly to let their chant build. In this case, he let go of the lectern, looked to his left, back to his right, back to his left, pausing for 13 seconds, before resuming only after the chant had died down
Greg Sargent: What's behind the tensions between moderates and progressives? Numbers, partly. (Washington Post)
The simple but difficult truth of the matter is that many of these moderate districts are a lot more Republican-leaning than many might think.
According to calculations Wasserman shared with me, the average PVI of all 43 of those Democratic-held districts is R+2, meaning on average they tilt two points more Republican-leaning than the country.
Mary Beard: Kisses, and other things better kept out of art (TLS)
kissing is a subject that defeats most artists. Can anyone think of a good painting of the subject? For me, it belongs to a short list of themes best avoided even by the greatest painters and sculptors. Top of that list is a classical myth. You may be able to come up with a worthwhile representation of a kiss, but I challenge anyone to think of a remotely impressive rendering of Leda and the Swan.
Mary Beard: Remembering Fergus Millar - on how to disagree (TLS)
I still recall Millar opening the discussion, by saying that we were going to be having a free, frank and intense debate
but that after the session he and Hopkins would be having a couple of gin and tonics in the bar as they regularly did, and they fully anticipated remaining friends whatever their disagreements, and we were all very welcome to come and have a gin and tonic in the bar too.
Benjamin Lee: Crawl review - brutal alligator horror is a snappy summer surprise (The Guardian)
Piranha 3D director Alexandre Aja returns to the water for a lean, suspenseful tale of a father and daughter trapped in a flooding, predator-filled house.
Danny Leigh: Does Andrea Arnold's experience on Big Little Lies suggest that auteurs are doomed? (The Guardian)
When film-makers are lured to the small screen, things don't always go smoothly - but the situation is barely any better in the movies.
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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
A member of President Abraham Lincoln's cabinet was ambitious to be President, and some of Lincoln's friends advised him to squelch the cabinet-member's ambition. However, President Lincoln said the situation reminded him of a time when he was plowing with a slow horse, and suddenly the horse began pushing the plow so quickly that he had to run to keep up with the horse and the plow. When he came to the end of the row, he looked at the horse and discovered that a chin-fly was biting the horse, so he knocked it off. His brother had then criticized him, saying that the chin-fly was the only thing making the horse go. President Lincoln then told his advisors about the cabinet-member, "If he has a Presidential chin-fly biting him, I'm not going to knock it off, if it will only make his department go."
Gioacchino Rossini used to boast about his procrastinating abilities, which caused music managers to tear their hair as they waited for him to finish composing a piece of music. In a letter, Mr. Rossini boasted, "In Italy, in my time, all the managers were bald at thirty." For example, Mr. Rossini composed the overture to Otello only after being locked in a room with a little food while a manager waited for the music. While composing the overture to La Gazza Ladra, Mr. Rossini was watched by four men. These men took each page of the overture as it was written, then threw it to the copyists, who were waiting in a downstairs room. According to Mr. Rossini, the four men had orders to throw himdownstairs if he failed to deliver the overture.
Max Schulman was the creator of The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis - both the TV series and the books the series was based on. He was quite an original guy. In the fourth year of the series, Bob Denver, who played beatnik Maynard G. Krebs, read a script that seemed familiar. It turned out that Mr. Shulman had found a Writers Guild ruling which said he could submit an old script if 40 percent of it had been changed. Therefore, he had his secretary count the words in a script from the first season, then he changed exactly 40 percent of the words. When Mr. Denver asked why he had done that, Mr. Shulman replied that his secretary didn't have enough to do.
When Robert Briscoe, the Jewish mayor of Dublin, Ireland, visited Egypt, he engaged the services of a guide for a while, paying him £1 a day. Discovering that he was overpaying the guide, he fired him, and then engaged a new guide for 5 shillings. Later, the guide he had fired asked to be rehired, saying that he was willing to work for 10 shillings a day. Mr. Briscoe asked, "Why should I be paying you 10 shillings when this other chap gives me good service for 5?" The guide replied, "He is a very lazy man. He has only one wife - I have three." Mr. Briscoe reengaged him. Why? "His sense of humor was worth the difference."
I.T. Frary used to handle publicity for the Cleveland Museum of Art. As a young man new to the staff, he was once hushed in the museum library because he was speaking above a whisper. At night, when the museum was closed and no one was around, Mr. Frary let out a series of loud whoops in the library and felt much better. Other people felt the same way as Mr. Frary about museums - despite being museums, they need not be stuffy. Late at night, when no one else was around, Mr. Frary and a clergyman friend once straddled the museum's marble balustrades and slid down.
Constance Benson (1860-1946) worked with actor Stephen Phillips in 1886, when he was no longer interested in his career. While playing Prospero in Shakespeare's Tempest on stage, he pretended his wand was a fishing pole and dangled it over the orchestra pit. As the play proceeded, he murmured to Ms. Benson in asides which fish he had caught, and from which musical instrument he had caught them.
The Irish sometimes have a casual attitude to work. Actress Constance Benson once asked an Irish porter to label her trunk because she was travelling from Limerick to Waterford. The porter scratched his head, put a label on her trunk, and then told her, "I haven't got a label for Waterford, so I've put ye one on for Cork."
Edward Kennedy ran for the Senate when he was young, and his opponent tried to get the voters mad at him by saying that Mr. Kennedy had never worked a day in his life. The plan didn't work. Once a voter shook Mr. Kennedy's hand, then said, "Mr. Kennedy, I understand that you've never worked a day in your life. Let me tell you, you haven't missed a thing."
Alexander Hamilton served as George Washington's secretary, but he was often late to meetings, placing the blame on a malfunctioning watch. After Mr. Hamilton was late once too often, Mr. Washington told him, "Sir, you must provide yourself a new watch, or I a new Secretary."
At age 10, comedian Joe Cook got his first job in show business by using a photograph of himself juggling 17 balls. The photograph was faked - the balls were hung from the ceiling with invisible wires.
"My father taught me to work, but not to love it. I never did like to work, and I don't deny it. I'd rather read, tell stories, crack jokes, talk, laugh - anything but work." - Abraham Lincoln.
"I am always for the man who wishes to work." - Abraham Lincoln.
Richard Wagner wrote a little more than an hour of music per year - in 53 years as a composer, he wrote approximately 61 hours of music.
A new church secretary had previously worked for the Pentagon - he labeled the church files as "Sacred" and "Top Sacred."
"It is better for a man to skin animal carcasses than to say to the community: 'Support me, I am a great sage.'" - Bava Batra, 110a.
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Selected Readings
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In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Running late, again.
World's Most Admired Woman
Michelle Obama
Former first lady Michelle Obama is the most admired woman in the world according to a new poll by YouGov.
Obama dethrones Angelina Jolie, who ranks No. 3 this year.
Oprah Winfrey ranked No. 2, followed by Jolie, Queen Elizabeth II, and Emma Watson rounding out the top 5 leading ladies.
YouGov compiled their lists of 20 women and 20 men by gathering nominations from 42,000 people in 41 countries.
On the men's list, Bill Gates takes the top spot (again) as most admired man in the world, followed by former president Barack Obama, Jackie Chan, Zi Jinping, and Jack Ma rounding out the top 5.
Michelle Obama
Journalist Reporting On Immigration
Manuel Duran
There were bugs, and the showers were cold. Air conditioning was not available, but the heat was turned on inexplicably.
If you didn't have family in the United States to send money for food, you would go hungry.
Those are just some of the conditions Manuel Duran described after he was released from a US immigration detention centre.
As a journalist in Memphis, Tennessee, Mr Duran had been reporting on immigration enforcement officials and sordid conditions for more than a decade by the time they took him into custody last year.
After being released last week from 15 months in detention, Mr Duran, 43, decried what he called the brutal treatment of immigrants by Don-Old Trump (R-Pendejo)'s administration.
Manuel Duran
Cast Reveals
Spongebob
"Are you ready kids?" Every child who grew up watching Spongebob Squarepants will recognize those words as the opening to the iconic Nickelodeon cartoon's theme song - as well as the pirate painting with moving lips that sings them.
It turns out that those lips belong to none other than series creator Stephen Hillenburg, who died last November from ALS at age 57.
Squidward voice actor Rodger Bumpass revealed the secret at the show's San Diego Comic-Con panel on Thursday, Entertainment Weekly reports.
"I don't know if its common knowledge or not, but when you see the opening and there's that painting of the pirate and there's lips moving, that's Stephen," Bumpass said.
"I think the painting, somebody found in a thrift store somewhere, on sale," said the voice of Spongebob, Tom Kenny.
Spongebob
Producer Sues Warner Bros.
'It'
Frank Konigsberg and Larry Sanitsky were running Telepictures in the early 1980s when they acquired the rights to the Stephen King novel. They developed the project as a miniseries for ABC, and stayed on through pre-production. They left the company after it merged with Lorimar, and were given a company credit on the miniseries, which aired in 1990.
According to the lawsuit, the pair signed a deal with Lorimar that made them "non exclusive executive producers," with backend participation and rights to involvement in any sequel, spinoff or remake of the show.
The suit alleges that Warner Bros. stopped issuing profit statements in 1995, and never consulted either producer about the film adaptations. "It" was released in 2017, which grossed $700 million worldwide. "It: Chapter Two" is due out in September.
The suit also claims they are entitled to 10% of net profits of any remake, which the suit alleges would amount to tens of millions of dollars.
Konigsberg died in 2016, at the age of 83. Sanitsky, 67, is pursuing the case through the partners' corporate entities. Their companies are represented by Dale Kinsella, of Kinsella Weitzman Iser Kump and Aldisert.
'It'
5 Million Votes
2020
In the wake of President Don-Old Trump (R-Crooked)'s tweets suggesting several nonwhite progressive congresswomen "go back" to their countries - three of them were born in the U.S. - it's tempting for Democrats to believe the comments will backfire with an increasingly diverse electorate and seriously damage his re-election prospects.
But the cold reality for Democrats? The bulk of the nation's demographic transformation is taking place in states that matter the least in deciding the Electoral College.
Democrats' worst nightmare came true in November 2016 when Hillary Clinton captured 2.9 million more votes than Donald Trump but he still comfortably prevailed in the Electoral College, 306 to 232. As much as they would like to purge that outcome from memory, Democrats would be unwise to write it off as a fluke: In 2020, it's possible Trump could win 5 million fewer votes than his opponent - and still win a second term.
The nation's two most populous states, California and Texas, are at the heart of Democrats' geography problem.
Both behemoths are growing more diverse at a much faster rate than the nation - owing to booming Asian and Latino populations - and are trending toward Democrats. Yet neither blue California nor red Texas would play a pivotal role in a close 2020 election, potentially rendering millions of additional Democratic votes useless.
2020
Young Men 'Benefit'
Abortion
When young women use abortion services, the adolescent men who avoid becoming teenaged fathers go on to have better educational and financial futures than peers who do become teen fathers, a U.S. study suggests.
Young men who were involved in a pregnancy before age 20 that ended in abortion were more likely to pursue post-high school education and to graduate from college, according to the analysis in the Journal of Adolescent Health.
"As we see more abortion restrictions being passed across many states, it's important to consider the potential broader consequence of these restrictions," said lead study author Bethany Everett of the University of Utah in Salt Lake City.
"We are seeing an influx of laws being passed that criminalize women who have abortions and abortion providers, and yet we never discuss male partners and how they may benefit from access to abortion," she told Reuters Health by email.
They focused on a group of nearly 600 young men, interviewed when they were in their late 20s and early 30s, who reported involvement in a pregnancy before age 20. About 23% of the pregnancies were terminated with an abortion.
Abortion
Leaking for 2.5 Billion Years
Earth's Core
Earth's scorching core is not a loner - it has been caught mingling with other, underworldly layers. That's according to a new study that found the innermost part of the planet leaks some of its contents into mantle plumes, some of which eventually reach Earth's surface.
This discovery helps settle a debate that's been raging for decades: whether the core and mantle exchange any material, the researchers said.
"Our findings suggest some core material does transfer into the base of these mantle plumes, and the core has been leaking this material for the past 2.5 billion years," the researchers wrote in The Conversation, a website where scientists write about their research for the public.
The finding was made possible by the metal tungsten (W), element 74 on the periodic table. If tungsten were to make a dating profile, it would note that it's a siderophile, or "iron lover." So, it's no surprise that a lot of tungsten hangs out in Earth's core, which is made primarily of iron and nickel.
On its profile, tungsten would also list that it has a few isotopes (an element with a different number of neutrons in its nucleus), including W-182 (with 108 neutrons) and W-184 (with 110 neutrons). While devising their study, the researchers realized that these isotopes could help them solve the core-leaking question.
Earth's Core
First-Ever
Magnetic Liquid
What has the magnetic properties of a solid magnet, but the mechanical properties of a liquid? If you answered 'nothing,' you're wrong - because engineers have just created just such a substance, by using a modified 3D printer.
Yes, ferrofluid is already a thing, but this is different. Unlike the ferrofluid you may know and love (because come on, it is awesome), the new magnetic liquid retains its magnetism even in the absence of an external magnetic field.
It's pretty similar to ferrofluid, actually. Both consist of ferromagnetic nanoparticles suspended in a fluid. The new magnetic liquid uses iron oxide nanoparticles, which is also a popular choice for ferrofluid, so there are no surprises there.
But last year, the team developed a technique for 3D-printing structures out of liquid. It used two liquids: water injected into a tube of silicone oil mixed with a nanoparticle surfactant that forms an elastic film, essentially holding the water in place.
This is what the team decided to use for their nanoparticle suspension, printing droplets just one millimetre in diameter. The iron oxide nanoparticles crowded towards the surface of the droplet, forming a shell at the interface between the water droplets and the oil suspension. This is called interfacial jamming, and it's a well-known nanoparticle behaviour.
Magnetic Liquid
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 July 17, 2019:
1. Ed Sheeran; $5,807,996; $86.55.
2. Pink; $2,774,154; $143.05.
3. Dead & Company; $2,725,223; $91.03.
4. Ariana Grande; $1,889,474; $121.28.
5. Cher; $1,492,852; $114.85.
6. Rod Stewart; $1,406,386; $106.97.
7. Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band; $1,274,383; $103.46.
8. Elton John; $1,262,195; $119.89.
9. Backstreet Boys; $1,254,050; $94.35.
10. Shawn Mendes; $1,204,414; $70.27.
11. Hugh Jackman; $1,001,732; $84.87.
12. Kenny Chesney; $955,914; $94.34.
13. New Kids On The Block; $941,735; $80.39.
14. Mark Knopfler; $905,585; $87.10.
15. Andrι Rieu; $831,896; $83.25.
16. Twenty One Pilots; $820,699; $59.28.
17. Hootie & The Blowfish; $809,014; $62.32.
18. Chayanne; $698,604; $95.53.
19. Jerry Seinfeld; $617,528; $107.96.
20. B2K; $487,254; $89.38.
Global Concert Tours
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