Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Paul Krugman: Democrats, Avoid the Robot Rabbit Hole (NY Times Column)
So harping on the dangers of automation, while it may sound tough-minded, is in practice a sort of escapist fantasy for centrists who don't want to confront truly hard questions. And progressives like Warren and Sanders who reject technological determinism and face up to the political roots of our problems are, on this issue at least, the actual hardheaded realists in the room. Other Democrats should follow their lead. They should focus on the real issues, and not get sidetracked by the pseudo-issue of automation.
Paul Krugman: Who's Afraid of Nancy Pelosi? (NY Times, from 2018)
First, as House minority leader, she played a crucial role in turning back George W. Bush's attempt to privatize Social Security. Then she was the key figure, arguably even more crucial than President Barack Obama, in passing the Affordable Care Act, which produced a spectacular fall in the number of uninsured Americans and has proved surprisingly robust even in the face of Trumpian sabotage. She helped enact financial reform, which has turned out to be more vulnerable to being undermined, but still helped stabilize the economy and protected many Americans from fraud. Pelosi also helped pass the Obama stimulus plan, which economists overwhelmingly agree mitigated job losses from the financial crisis, as well as playing a role in laying the foundation for a green energy revolution.
Mary Beard: The Crisis of Rhetoric? (TLS)
I see the current problem of time (when does a modern politician get a moment to reflect?) and all; and I see the need for collaborative work on speeches (for heaven's sake, I want, and value, a bit of collaborative work when I am giving a big lecture, I will show the text to colleagues etc, so why not on big political speeches too?). But, all that said, I am a bit of a Cicero (who was worried about the difference between an actor and an orator) and in my politics I want to know who is talking to me, straight. I don't want to be engaging with a speechwriter.
Mary Beard: The TLS for kids? (TLS)
Some writers - J. K. Rowling and Philip Pullman would be two - have transcended the category of "children's author", and indeed (despite stories of a special adult cover being provided for Harry Potter) are widely read by all ages. But a lot of others are more marginalized from the literary mainstream.
Pamela Hutchinson: "The Circus: The Tramp in the Mirror" (Criterion)
Charlie Chaplin gave The Circus (1928) one of his favorite themes, some of his most sublime gags, and an incomparably poignant ending. It's a hugely personal work, which draws on moments from his whole career, from his early stage work to his cinema back catalog, and also seems to anticipate Limelight, his last great movie, which was twenty-four years in the future. He even won an Academy Award for it. Yet famously, Chaplin barely mentions The Circus in his 1964 memoir, My Autobiography.
Alexandra Petri: Trump's Doral resort for the G-7? Yes, please! (Washington Post)
Will Donald Trump benefit from hosting the event there? Only financially! Only in the sense that this Trump-branded property will get a lot of publicity and people will be forced to pay it money. Meanwhile, consider that every time Donald Trump makes a statement as president and doesn't mention his properties, he is losing money. This is the least we can do for him.
Paul Waldman and Greg Sargent: Trump's hosting of the G-7 is deeply corrupt. Here's how Democrats can step up. (Washington Post)
It's unlikely that the Senate will remove President Trump from office if or when he's impeached, but the president isn't taking any chances: He's going to squeeze every last dime he can out of the presidency while he still has the opportunity.
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Presenting
Michael Egan
said:
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION
BANDCAMP MUSIC
BANDCAMP MUSIC YOU WILL PROBABLY NEVER HEAR ON THE RADIO
Song: "Bugs Bunny"
Artist: Los Bitchos
Artist Location: London, UK
Artist Info: Five gals from the underground realms of London, tripping out on tequila and Cumbia vibes.
"Cumbia is a folkloric genre and dance from Colombia and Panama." - Wikipedia
Genre: Instrumental.
Price: 1 British Pound, aka £1. Approximately $1.35 (USA)
If you are OK with paying for it, you can use PAYPAL or CREDIT CARD
"Bugs Bunny" by Los Bitchos
David Bruce has over 140 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
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Michael Egan
from Bruce
Anecdotes
• Polyclitus, an ancient Greek sculptor, once created two statues. One statue he kept private; the other he displayed to visitors. Often, a visitor would criticize the statue in some way, saying that the eyes were too far apart or that a thigh was too long. Whenever someone criticized the statue, Polyclitus would "fix" whatever the visitor had criticized. When both statues were completed, he exhibited both statues. The statue he had worked on in private was pronounced a masterpiece; the one that had been "fixed" by taking into account the criticisms of visitors was laughed at. Polyclitus was asked, "How can one statue be so good and the other statue be so bad?" He replied, "Because I did this one, and you did that one."
• Two Chicago artists, Anders Nilsen and Cheryl Weaver, lived together before her death from cancer. She took wonderful photographs, but she did not want to show her photographs in public. According to Mr. Nilsen, "She didn't want to be there and have to hear people talk about what they thought." Therefore, Mr. Nilsen spent a lot of time unsuccessfully attempting to convince her to show her photographs in public. Actually, it's a good thing he did spend his time doing this. He chuckles and says, "The more I tried, the more she would resist. But then if I didn't try, we'd fight because she didn't think that I thought she was a good artist."
• When he was 11 years old, actor Brian Blessed met Pablo Picasso when his father took him to Sheffield to visit the World Peace Congress. Young Brian told Picasso, "You're not Picasso - you sound more like Carmen Miranda. Prove it - draw me something." Picasso drew his famous peace dove, but young Brian told him, "That's not a dove!" - and then Brian gave it back to him. Picasso said, "It's the first time I have a true critic." In 2008, the then 71-year-old Brian said, "The drawing is now in the Sheffield City Hall and worth £11.5 million."
• A visitor to the home of painter James Abbott McNeill Whistler made comments on several of Whistler's paintings, finding fault with each one. Looking at Whistler's latest painting, the visitor said that it was "not good." Whistler responded, "You shouldn't say it is not good. You should say you do not like it, and then, you know, you are perfectly safe. Now come and have something you do like - have some whiskey."
• Early in his career, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, like other Impressionists, sometimes traded his paintings for things that he needed. Mr. Renoir once agreed to paint a portrait of the wife of a cobbler in exchange for a pair of shoes. He remembered, "Every time I thought the picture was finished and saw myself wearing the shoes, along came the aunt, the daughter, and even the old servant, to criticize."
• When Pablo Picasso invented Cubism, most people did not know how to interpret it. Some Americans once looked at a nude by Picasso in an exhibit and thought it was a fire escape! As editor of a magazine, Guillaume Apollinaire published some Cubist drawings by Picasso. Unfortunately, the public was so outraged by the drawings that Mr. Apollinaire was forced to resign.
• Sister Parish, an American interior decorator and socialite, lived for style and fashion. As an interior decorator, she would go through her bosses' possessions, tossing anything she deemed unworthy - including her bosses' sentimental keepsakes. She once told a far-from-innocent bystander (who was guilty of a gross lack of style), "If you don't do something about your hair, you will be ruined.
• Artist/writer Edward Gorey was a man of wit and intelligence. Edmund Wilson once criticized Mr. Gorey's prose, so Mr. Gorey dedicated his next book to the eminent critic. The book consisted of illustrations only - it had no prose at all.
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Arrested Alongside Jane Fonda
Sam Waterston
It's Friday, and actress Jane Fonda has been arrested again - just like she promised she would be - while protesting climate change in Washington, D.C., but this time she was joined by her "Grace & Frankie" co-star Sam Waterston.
Fonda, 81, and Waterston, 78, were protesting at the U.S. Capitol Friday when they were put in plastic handcuffs by U.S. Capitol Police, according to pictures posted by NBC reporter Frank Thorp Friday. This is Fonda's second arrest in two weeks, having been arrested last week in similar circumstances at the Capitol.
Thorp's pictures in his Twitter thread Friday show Fonda and Waterston in handcuffs at the Green New Deal protest. Waterston, known for "Law & Order," as well as "Grace & Frankie," told Thorp this was his first time being arrested.
The Twitter account for the Fonda-founded activist organization Fire Drill Fridays posted a picture of Waterston giving a speech earlier at the protest, at which he is quoted as having said, "We can do this! We need something to push for that's as big as the problem."
The arrests are no surprise, given Fonda's public declaration in recent weeks that she plans to protest for environmental action at the U.S. Capitol every Friday. She told the Los Angeles Times that she was given four months of time off from filming "Grace & Frankie" to devote to climate change activism.
Sam Waterston
Streaming Dea
'South Park'
Viacom is closing on a massive streaming deal for Comedy Central's animated comedy "South Park," TheWrap has learned.
The longrunning animated comedy could garner between $450-$500 million for rights to its past episodes, an individual with knowledge of the discussions told TheWrap. The news was first reported by Bloomberg.
"South Park," from creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker, is currently in its 23rd season. It was renewed through Season 26 last month.
HBO Max, Peacock and Hulu, which has held the streaming rights to "South Park" since 2015, are all vying for the series. Hulu's current deal includes next-day rights to current-season episodes, which means they're available on Hulu one day after they premiere on Comedy Central. Prior to Hulu, "South Park" streamed on Netflix.
Viacom hopes to reach a new deal by the end of 2019, with an announcement possible as early as next week.
'South Park'
Big Screen
Barney
Barney is a dinosaur who we all know from TV, but now Mattel is bringing Barney & Friends to the big screen.
Variety reports that Mattel Films and Daniel Kaluuya's (Get Out, Black Panther) production company, 59%, are teaming up to make a live-action Barney movie about a stuffed purple dinosaur who's brought to life through the imaginations of children who all love to sing and dance to solve their problems.
"Barney was a ubiquitous figure in many of our childhoods, then he disappeared into the shadows, left misunderstood," Kaluuya said in curious statement. "We're excited to explore this compelling modern-day hero and see if his message of 'I love you, you love me' can stand the test of time."
So what will this new Barney for the 2020s look like exactly? Mattel Films head Robbie Brenner explained that the movie will be something of a new spin on the classic children's TV series that'll appeal to audiences young and old. "Working with Daniel Kaluuya will enable us to take a completely new approach to Barney that will surprise audiences and subvert expectations," she said. "The project will speak to the nostalgia of the brand in a way that will resonate with adults, while entertaining today's kids."
Barney
Backlash Grows
'Abominable'
A scene in the film "Abominable" featuring a map with Beijing's disputed South China Sea claims sparked a growing regional backlash Friday, with Malaysia cutting the segment just days after Vietnam pulled the movie entirely.
The animated film about a Chinese teenager helping a yeti return to his home shows a chart featuring the "nine-dash" line which sets out Beijing's expansive claims to the flashpoint waters.
By including the U-shaped line, the movie -- a joint production by DreamWorks and China's Pearl Studio -- has stumbled into a festering row that has long been a source of friction between Beijing and Southeast Asia.
China's claims overlap those of several other states, and it has been building military outposts on small islands and atolls in the area, while frequent patrols by US warships to assert the right to free navigation have added to tensions.
Rival claimant Malaysia became the latest to lash out, with film censorship board chief Mohamad Zamberi Abdul Aziz saying in a statement that the movie could be screened in the country "with the condition that the map, which has become controversial, is removed".
'Abominable'
Chinese Release Blocked
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
The Chinese release of Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood has been abruptly cancelled, following an appeal by Bruce Lee's daughter over the film's controversial depiction of her father.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, Shannon Lee directly appealed to China's National Film Administration to pull the film's release and demand that Tarantino edit the film to depict her father in a more positive light.
As a result of Lee's appeal, the 25 October release of the film has been indefinitely put on hold, with the film's Chinese backers Bona Film Group "frantically working with Tarantino" to alter the film.
Shannon Lee publicly condemned Tarantino in July, when she said that she felt the film depicted her father as a "caricature" and an "arrogant a**hole who was full of hot air".
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Wrecked Aircraft Carrier
Kaga
Deep-sea explorers scouring the world's oceans for sunken Second World War ships have uncovered the wreck of a Japanese aircraft carrier destroyed in the pivotal Battle of Midway.
Fought in June 1942, the clash saw US aircraft carriers ambush their Japanese foes and sink all four opposing Imperial Navy (IJN) flattops thanks partly to intelligence gained through intercepted communications.
The crew of the Petrel research vessel, in conjunction with the US Navy, revealed on Friday that it had found the Japanese carrier Kaga lying 5.4km beneath the waves. This week, the crew is sending robots into the abyss to investigate what may be another wreck site.
The expedition was started by the late Paul Allen, the billionaire co-founder of Microsoft, working with officials around the world to locate and document sunken ships, of which it has found 31 so far. It is illegal to otherwise disturb the underwater US military grave sites, and their precise coordinates are secret.
Eerie footage released by the Petrel team on Friday revealed the twisted wreck of the Kaga, which was finally tracked down after scans of some 500 nautical miles inside the Papahanaumokuakea marine national monument, a US conservation preserve which includes Midway atoll. The ship is said to be missing much of her flight deck, while animals have colonised her pipework and shattered metal plates.
Kaga
Takes Swipe
Mattis
Former US defense secretary James Mattis said he was honored to be the "world's most overrated general" in a swipe at his former boss Donald Trump (R-Crooked) who insulted him earlier this week.
At a gala charity dinner in New York Thursday evening, Mattis told diners he had now "achieved greatness."
"I'm not just an overrated general. I am the greatest, the world's most overrated," he said. "I'm honored to be considered that by Donald Trump because he also called Meryl Streep an overrated actress."
"So I guess I'm the Meryl Streep of generals, and frankly that sounds pretty good to me," he said to laughter and applause at the annual Alfred E Smith Memorial Foundation dinner.
"And you do have to admit that between me and Meryl, at least we've had some victories."
Mattis
1950s Nuclear Weapons Tests
Antarctica
Antarctic ice sheets are still releasing a radioactive element as a result of nuclear weapons tests conducted by the US 70 years ago, according to new research published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.
Chlorine-36 is a naturally occurring radioactive isotope that can form when argon gas reacts with cosmic rays in the atmosphere. It can also form during nuclear explosions over the ocean when neutrons react with chlorine found in seawater, which can evaporate to the stratosphere, travel around the globe, and ultimately become deposited on Antarctic ice and snow where it can become permanently stored.
"There is no more nuclear chlorine-36 in the global atmosphere. That is… why we should observe natural chlorine-36 levels everywhere," said study author and geoscientist Mélanie Baroni in a statement.
The US conducted multiple nuclear weapons tests in the Pacific Ocean in the 1950s and 1960s. In less than 20 years, a total of 19 operational test series were conducted, resulting in more than 230 detonations. Similar findings of chlorine-36 have been found in ice core samples from a US glacier located in the Wind River Mountain Range of Wyoming.
To determine how chlorine-36 behaves over time, particularly in areas with varying levels of snowfall, researchers took ice core samples dated between 1949 and 2007 from a snow pit at Vostok, a Russian research station in East Antarctica that gets very little snow. They then compared it against samples from 1910 to 1980 taken from Talos Dome, a region located 1,400 kilometers (870 miles) away that receives a lot of snow every year.
Antarctica
Showed Early Signs of Heart Disease
4,000-Year-Old Mummies
Four-thousand-year-old mummies have cholesterol buildup in their arteries, suggesting that heart disease was likely more common in ancient times than once thought, according to a new study.
Prior studies have examined arterial calcium accumulation in mummified human hearts and arteries using dissection and X-ray computed tomography (CT) scanning. But these studies showed damage that only occurs in the later stages of heart disease and presents an incomplete picture of how widespread heart disease risk may have been thousands of years ago.
Now, researchers have analyzed arteries from five ancient mummies from South America and ancient Egypt, detecting an earlier stage of atherosclerosis - when plaque collects on artery walls and restricts blood flow.
"I've been looking at the pattern of heart disease in populations for over 20 years," said lead study author Mohammad Madjid, an assistant professor of cardiovascular medicine at McGovern Medical School, part of the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston."Over time, the question that came to my mind was: Is it a disease of the modern day, or is it some process that is inherent to humans, irrespective of modern life?"
To answer that question, Madjid and his colleagues collected arterial samples from five mummies dating from 2000 B.C. to A.D. 1000; the remains represented three men and two women, who were between 18 years old and 60 years old. The scientists scanned tiny sections of arteries, which were just a few centimeters in length, Madjid told Live Science. Their analysis revealed lesions from accumulated cholesterol, precursors to the plaque buildup that blocks arteries and leads to heart attacks. This is the first evidence of earlier-stage lesions in mummies from different parts of the world, the study authors wrote.
4,000-Year-Old Mummies
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