Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Paul Krugman: From Trump Boom to Trump Gloom (NY Times)
Last year, after an earlier stock market swoon brought on by headlines about the U.S.-China trade conflict, I laid out three rules for thinking about such events. First, the stock market is not the economy. Second, the stock market is not the economy. Third, the stock market is not the economy. But maybe I should add a fourth rule: The bond market sorta kinda is the economy.
Mary Beard: Do squabbling Romans have something to teach? (TLS)
Why so ineffectual? It may be that they were actually much happier with one-man rule than we often imagine. If so, fine. But there is a strong suspicion that they had been powerless for so long that they had actually forgotten how to take control and run things. I really hope that isn't true for our opposition. But they are giving an awfully good impression of that bickering Roman senate!
Mary Beard: Have a nice day? Lessons from a funeral (TLS)
I have never quite understood what a "good funeral" means exactly. I remember when I was a kid my mum used to talk of giving someone a "good send-off". Even then I wondered "good for whom?" and vaguely flirted with the idea that the coffin's occupant was sentient enough to know what kind of celebration they were being offered.
Mary Beard: The pleasures of Manchester (TLS)
Unfairly perhaps (given that I'm sixty-four) I blame my parents. We lived in Shropshire, and I got the impression that you went north for the mountains and the wild open spaces, and you went south for "culture". For most of my childhood that meant the occasional trip to London, but later it meant work and pleasure in Italy and Greece, and in particular in the Ancient and modern cities of the Mediterranean. That's what culture was.
Alexandra Petri: Endangered bear confident it would not be treated this way if it were only a person (Washington Post)
"This is America," the bear explained. "I know that I am a grizzly, and therefore it is not clear how my presence enriches this country. But think if I were a person who could contribute to the economy! Who could have dreams! Who could be proud to be an American! Then would you be so hasty to tell me this should not be my home? Oh, to be a person," it lamented, "and never be put in a cage!"
Helaine Olen: Why it's harder for female presidential candidates to draw support (Washington Post)
So the takeaway: Keep marching, keep protesting, keep calling your elected representatives' offices, and for goodness' sake, ladies, open your wallets! Even more importantly, it's helpful for women - and those who would support female candidates for office - to remember a self-help aphorism: If you don't believe in yourself, no one else will. The only way to ultimately prove that we can elect a female president is to support, vote for and ultimately elect a female president.
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Presenting
Michael Egan
took the day off.
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
David E Suggests
1980s
David
Thanks, Dave!
from Bruce
Anecdotes
Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
Reader Photos
Passiflora
Here are some of my passiflora.
David in Moon Valley
Thanks, David!
Reader Comment
Current Events
Linda >^..^<
We are all only temporarily able bodied.
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Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
JD is on vacation.
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Running late.
In Support
Letter
America Ferrera and Eva Longoria are among the A-list stars that have signed a letter to support the Latino community in light of recent deadly attacks and political targeting.
The Superstore star and the Desperate Housewives star were among 200 actors, musicians, artists, activists, and labor and civil rights leaders that have signed the letter, which has been published in newspapers including The New York Times, El Nuevo Herald, La Opinión, and El Diario.
Other top names include Diane Guerrero, Alex Martinez Kondracke, Mónica Ramírez, and Olga Segura, along With Jennifer Lopez, Gina Rodriguez, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Carmen Perez, Anthony D. Romero, Wilmer Valderrama, Zoe Saldana, Salma Hayek Pinault, Ricky Martin, Rosario Dawson, Diego Luna, Dolores Huerta and Sandra Cisneros.
This comes amid a raft of incidents including the mass shooting in El Paso, Texas that killed 22 individuals and injured 24 others, the sweeping ICE raids that took 680 individuals into custody in Mississippi, the continued separation of families, and the inhumane living conditions of those detained.
"We're facing a moral crisis in our country, and we chose to use this moment to raise our voices, and speak up," said Longoria. "Integrity starts with looking in the mirror and this letter calls on everyone, not just our community, to choose humanity and decency over hate and violence."
Letter
#BoycottMulan Trends
Disney
#BoycottMulan is trending on Twitter over a pro-police social media post by Chinese-American actress Liu Yifei.
Yifei, who is starring in Disney's live-action remake of Mulan, the 1998 animated film about a female warrior during China's Han dynasty, made a political post on the microblogging site Weibo.
Sharing a photo from the Chinese paper People's Daily that reads, "I support Hong Kong's police, you can beat me up now" (as roughly translated, according to Newsweek), Yifei added, "What a shame for Hong Kong" and "I also support Hong Kong police..."
Yifei's statement drew lines on social media and drove hostility toward Disney, which will release Mulan in March 2020. "Disney's Mulan actress, Liu Yifei, supports police brutality and oppression in Hong Kong," tweeted Twitter user @sdnorton. "Liu is a naturalized American citizen. it must be nice. meanwhile she pisses on people fighting for democracy. retweet please. HK doesn't get enough support."
Disney
How Much Performers Got Paid
Woodstock
Before Woodstock was a cultural phenomenon, it was a financial fiasco.
Organizers behind the legendary music festival in upstate New York, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this summer, said they wound up $1.3 million in debt after the historic 1969 event-roughly $9 million in today's dollars. But they eventually broke even years later thanks to album and movie ticket sales.
In addition to basic problems like miles of traffic jams and a lack of sanitation and food for a colossal crowd estimated at over 400,000, Woodstock organizers failed to adequately fence in the concert area. As a result, many fans attended without paying for admission - which was $18 for the three-day festival, the equivalent of about $125 today. That meant festival producers had even less money than expected to pay Woodstock's performers, several of whom reportedly demanded twice their usual pay rate, upfront.
How much did bands get paid for playing at Woodstock in 1969? The amounts varied widely, according to generally accepted reports that have surfaced over the years and trace back to an old story in Variety. The disparity in some of the paychecks is dramatic: Woodstock headliner Jimi Hendrix was paid over 20 times higher than another guitar icon, Carlos Santana, who was mostly unknown at the time.
Woodstock organizers were inclined to pay top dollar to artists like Hendrix, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and Jefferson Airplane because they were desperate to put well-known talent on the bill. Leading up to the festival, top acts like the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, The Doors, John Lennon, and Bob Dylan all declined to perform at Woodstock. Some on-the-spot improvisation was also necessary for Woodstock producers: In order to get stars like Jimi Hendrix on stage, organizers reportedly convinced a local bank to open up after hours during the festival and took out an emergency loan.
Woodstock
Aston Martin DB5 Auctioned
James Bond
One winning bidder is now legally able to drive in an actual James Bond Aston Martin, with working nail spreaders, tire slashers, smoke screen and rotating license plates.
That person just got the keys for the 1965 Aston Martin DB5 for $6.4 million at a classic car auction in Monterey, California. The price includes a buyer's fee payed to the auction house, RM Auctions. The identity of the buyer was not revealed.
It probably isn't a good idea for the new owner to actually use any of those gadgets on public roads, but they all work. And the car is entirely street legal.
This car was originally created to promote the movie Thunderball, but didn't actually appear in the film. It has an actual nail spreader and oil slick maker that drop real nails and oil behind the car. There's also a real smoking "smoke screen" and a "bulletproof" screen that comes up behind the back window. It's even decorated with faux bullet damage.
There are also rotating license plates on the back and front of the car. They are controlled by a knob inside labeled "B-S-F" for British, Swiss and French plates. The guns that poke out from behind the front turn signals don't fire real bullets, but they do make a very realistic "bang!" using oxygen and acetylene.
James Bond
Wolf To Oversee Henhouse
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
The Trump administration has hired a longtime student loan industry executive to be the federal government's top watchdog for the $1.5 trillion student loan market.
Robert Cameron will serve as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's new student loan ombudsman, the bureau said Friday.
It's a job designed to protect student loan borrowers from poor practices in the student loan industry and one of the few positions explicitly named in the Dodd-Frank Act, the law passed after the 2008 financial crisis that created the bureau. It's considered the go-to office for borrowers who have complaints about their loans.
Cameron most recently worked at the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency, better known as FedLoan Servicing, as its head of compliance and risk mitigation. PHEAA has been cited for poor industry practices, most notably for how it has handled the troubled Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, a program designed to allow student loan borrowers who work in public service jobs to get part of their loan balances forgiven.
The CFPB's student loan ombudsman position has been vacant for nearly a year. Seth Frotman, an Obama administration appointee, quit in protest of the Trump administration's handling the issue of student loans. Frotman now runs the Student Borrower Protection Center, trying to do what he was doing at the CFPB from outside the federal government.
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
Loaded With Microplastics
Arctic Sea Ice
At first glance, it looks like hard candy laced with flecks of fake fruit, or a third grader's art project confected from recycled debris.
In reality, it's a sliver of Arctic Ocean sea ice riddled with microplastics, extracted by scientists from deep inside an ice block that likely drifted southward past Greenland into Canada's increasingly navigable Northwest Passage between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
"We didn't expect this amount of plastic, we were shocked," said University of Rhode Island ice expert Alessandra D'Angelo, one of a dozen scientists collecting and analysing data during an 18-day expedition aboard the Swedish icebreaker Oden.
"There is so much of it, and of every kind -- beads, filaments, nylons," she told AFP from Greenland, days after completing the voyage.
Plastic pollution was not a primary focus of the Northwest Passage Project, funded by the US National Science Foundation and Heising-Simons Foundation.
Arctic Sea Ice
Previously Unknown Pain-Detecting Organ Discovered
Mammals
Until now, it was thought that the intense feeling we get from jabbing ourselves on something sharp was detected by exposed nerves in the skin. But scientists have just worked out this pain might actually be sensed by a previously unknown organ.
Researchers from the Karolinska Institute in Sweden have identified this unexpected pain detector in mice. They found that many-armed Schwann cells - cells known to protect and support neurons - reach out to each other beneath the outer skin layer (the epidermis) to form a mesh-like network. Meanwhile, their other 'arms' reach up into the epidermis.
Together, along with intertwined pain-detecting nerve cells, these cells work as sensory organ that responds to mechanical pain - such as sharpness, pressure, and burning.
To test if the newly identified Schwann cells actually contribute to the organ's ability to detect pain, the team used mice, genetically engineered so that only those specific cells could be triggered using light. Sure enough, when exposed to the light stimulus, the mice displayed signs of pain, including jerking their paw away or excessive licking - without having had their nerves or the other types of Schwann cells stimulated by pain.
When the researchers genetically blocked the Schwann cells in this previously unknown organ, the mice displayed a reduced sensitivity to mechanical, but not thermal pain triggers. This suggests at least some, but not all, mechanical pain detection is being processed by these cells, they explain in their paper.
Mammals
Vacation Home Beset
Vultures
Behold the Palm Beach vacation home that was recently purchased for $702,000, and behold the great many winged beasts who have shat and barfed their way to becoming the home's true lords and masters.
What we have here, via the Palm Beach Post, is a story about the eternal conflict between humankind and nature. The particulars of the story are this: The Casimano family paid a pretty penny for a vacation home, only to be chased out of it by hundreds of turkey vultures who insist on making the property their own domain. Even worse than having to deal with the presence of the birds is that they Casimanos have had to watch their property be drowned in puke and doo-doo:
The problem: Dozens, if not hundreds, of black vultures have taken over the yard and others, torn apart screened enclosures and made pools, patios and barbecues their own. The Casimanos, when in town, have to garage their car or the birds encircle it and dent it with their beaks, she said.
The birds go for regular feedings in the neighbor's yard, then roost on and around surrounding houses, Casimano said.
"The vultures just vomit everywhere," she said. "Defecating and vomiting. It's just gross. We can't even go back down to the house."
Vultures
Face Comes Alive In Wax
Druid Woman
A toothless skull was all that researchers had of one of Scotland's oldest known Druids, but now they have something more: a wax re-creation of her face, showcasing her gnarled wrinkles and seeming intense determination.
The Druid woman, nicknamed Hilda, lived during the Iron Age. An anatomical analysis suggests that Hilda made it into her 60s, an impressive feat because most women from that region and time lived only until their early 30s, said Karen Fleming, a forensic art and facial identification master's student at the University of Dundee in Scotland.
"Hilda was a fascinating character to recreate," Fleming said in a statement. "A female's life expectancy at this time was roughly 31 years, but it is now thought that living longer during the Iron Age is indicative of a privileged background."
Not much is known about Hilda. It's thought that her remains were found at Stornoway, on the Isle of Lewis, off the northern coast of Scotland. Her skull was one of six "Druids of the Hebrides" skulls presented to the Phrenological Society of Edinburgh in 1833. Since then, the skull has remained at The University of Edinburgh's Anatomical Museum.
"It's impossible to know for sure when she died as we were unable to carbon date the skull," Fleming said. "But assuming the information in the journal from 1833 is correct, Hilda passed away anytime between 55 B.C. to 400 A.D. and was of Celtic origin."
Druid Woman
In Memory
Peter Fonda
Peter Fonda, the Oscar-nominated actor whose roles in Dennis Hopper's Easy Rider and Roger Corman's The Trip made him a counterculture hero in the late 1960s, died Friday at the age of 78. The cause of death was respiratory failure due to lung cancer, his family confirmed.
"It is with deep sorrow that we share the news that Peter Fonda has passed away," the family said. "[Peter] passed away peacefully on Friday morning, August 16 at 11:05am at his home in Los Angeles surrounded by family," they continued. "The official cause of death was respiratory failure due to lung cancer. In one of the saddest moments of our lives, we are not able to find the appropriate words to express the pain in our hearts. As we grieve, we ask that you respect our privacy.
"And, while we mourn the loss of this sweet and gracious man, we also wish for all to celebrate his indomitable spirit and love of life," the family added. "In honor of Peter, please raise a glass to freedom."
Born February 23, 1940, in New York City, Fonda was the brother of Jane Fonda and son of actor Henry Fonda. He made his film debut in 1963, starring opposite Sandra Dee in the romantic comedy Tammy and the Doctor, but it was his appearance as a biker-club leader in B-movie director Roger Corman's The Wild Angels three years later that introduced him as a counterculture figure. Fonda furthered that reputation with the lead role in the 1967 LSD drama The Trip, written by Jack Nicholson and costarring Dennis Hopper, with whom he'd reteam the following year for the seminal road film Easy Rider.
Directed by Hopper, the movie cast Fonda and Hopper as free-spirit bikers Wyatt and Billy, who are eager to experience all facets of American life in the Sixties - the good, bad and ugly - while on a mind-expanding road trip. Fonda, in his red, white, and, blue helmet, embodied the figure of "Captain America" and scored an Academy Award nomination for co-writing the script with Hopper and Terry Southern.
Fonda's other notable roles included the 1971 Western The Hired Hand, which he directed; Wanda Nevada with Brooke Shields in 1979; and 1997's Ulee's Gold, a critical comeback for the actor. He earned a Best Actor Oscar nomination for his titular part as a widowed beekeeper with a problematic son.
Still, it was Fonda's Easy Rider role as a motorcyclist that became synonymous with his legacy, one he would later parody with cameos in 1981's Cannonball Run and 2007's road comedy Wild Hogs.
Peter Fonda
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