Mary Beard: Zuleika Dobson and the Emperors at Oxford (TLS)
The story is relatively simple and well worth reading. The young and exotically named heroine arrives among the dreaming spires to stay with her grandfather, who is the head of the fictional, or semi-fictional, Judas College. Not only does Zuleika proceed to fall in love for the first time, but all the male undergraduates (and Oxford was then an almost entirely male university) proceed to fall in love with her: literally all of them, and so badly in love that they end up killing themselves for her, every single one. At the end of the novel the unworldly dons seem hardly to have noticed that the students are all dead (even though the dining hall is strangely empty); meanwhile on the very last page, Zuleika is found making inquiries about how best to get to Cambridge (where it is not hard to guess what will happen). It is a clever satire both on the dangers of women and on the madness of this masculine university world.
Mary Beard: And there is another great exhibition on Pompeii …(TLS)
What I am hoping to do (prompted, in part, by the exhibition catalogue) is to contrast the excitement of what feels to be such a direct confrontation with the ancient world in Pompeii, and the fact that in many ways (only in part, but still a significant part) Pompeii is a magnificent exercise in the reconstruction of the Roman world as we would like to imagine it.
Boy George (born George Alan O'Dowd; 14 June 1961) is an English singer, songwriter, DJ and fashion designer. He is the lead singer of the pop band Culture Club. At the height of the band's fame, during the 1980s, they recorded global hit songs such as "Karma Chameleon", "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me" and "Time (Clock of the Heart)". George is known for his soulful voice and his androgynous appearance. He was part of the English New Romantic movement which emerged in the late 1970s to the early 1980s.
His music is often classified as blue-eyed soul, which is influenced by rhythm and blues and reggae. He was lead singer of Jesus Loves You during the period 1989-1992. His 1990s and 2000s-era solo music has glam influences, such as David Bowie and Iggy Pop. More recently, he has released fewer music recordings, splitting his time between songwriting, DJing, writing books, designing clothes and photography. In 2015, Boy George received an Ivor Novello Award from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors for Outstanding Services to British Music.
George was a follower of the New Romantic movement, which was popular in the UK in the early 1980s. He lived in various squats around Warren Street in Central London. He and his friend Marilyn were regulars at Blitz, a London nightclub run by Steve Strange and Rusty Egan. The pop artists that inspired him were Siouxsie and the Banshees, Roxy Music, Patti Smith, and the two major glam rock pioneers, David Bowie and T. Rex frontman Marc Bolan.
Source
Mark. was first, and correct, with:
Boy George.
Randall wrote:
Boy George
Kevin K. in Washington, DC, said:
George
Boy George
Alan J answered:
Boy George.
mj replied:
He has the Karma of a Chameleon
Makes me want to dress in red, gold, and green. Boy George.
zorch responded:
Boy George, who looked like a woman.
Dave wrote:
Boy George. Born in England of Irish parents, O'Dowd gained attention do to his androgynous style and started a band named Culture Club (probably a better commercial choice than the discarded name, Sex Gang Children) and some big pop hits with songs like "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?" and "Karma Chameleon" (#1 on US chart) during the mid-'80s MTV's heyday. As is typical for pop groups, the public got tired of them and Boy George took the opportunity to get addicted to Heroin. After years of obscurity Boy was arrested after handcuffing a gay prostitute to a wall fixture and beating him with a chain. He was sentenced to 15 months in prison for false imprisonment and assault. He's not as harmless as he looks.
Photo: Culture Club in the 1980s. Boy George is 3rd from the left, I don't know who those other fellows are and don't care. Boy George still looks weird, but different weird.
Cal in Vermont wrote:
Boy George who is 58 and no longer a boy.
Dave in Tucson said:
Boy George.
Deborah responded:
Karma Chameleon, anyone? George Alan O'Dowd is better known as Boy George. I bought a bootleg cassette of his album when we lived in the ROK, for a couple of bucks, tops. I played it until I wore it out.
Micki answered:
Boy George.
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BttbBob has returned to semi-retired status.
~~~~~
Song: "Simply Hell" from the album CHRISTMAS IS … NOT ON VAISHNAVA CALENDAR
Artist: Yama Niyama Dasa Brahmachari
Artist Location: ?
Info: "Yama Niyama Dasa Brahmachari is insignificant servant of devotees of Lord. Our humble mission: to remind everyone that human life is meant for the spiritual pursuit. Other pursuit is simply for the animal. Oh, and we are all going to die even though soul is eternal, so no point in trying to so-called 'enjoy' this world. YNDB came from very low-class background which he does not like to discuss."
Some Lyrics:
Dashing through your life, in a less than animal way
You do whatever you like, eating nonsense shrimp buffet
Too many cocktail drinks, and you get into one fight
What fun it is to ride to the emergency room tonight. Oh,
Simply hell, Simply hell
This world is dangerous place
It is no fun to have to die in a million painful ways oh
Simply hell, Simply hell
That is simply what it is
It is folly to be wise man where the ignorance is bliss
Price: $1.08 for song; $5.08 (USD) for 14-track album
• Hunter "Patch" Adams, M.D., once wrote a fund-raising letter for a charity. The 2-page letter, which was actually mailed and which was successful in raising funds, was entirely written in Greek. Why did he do this? He explains that he gets "so many fund-raising letters that they all start to look the same and they might as well be in Greek."
Media
• When Kathryn Grant - the future Mrs. Bing Crosby - was 18 years old, she had a chance to interview famous stars Bob Hope and Joan Fonteyn. Unfortunately, she nearly caused a disaster by asking Ms. Fonteyn how old she was. Fortunately, Mr. Hope smoothed things over by saying, "Making allowances for your youth and inexperience, we still can't let you talk to a great star that way. Now, here's what you should have asked." Mr. Hope then asked Ms. Fonteyn a series of questions that both elicited the information needed for Ms. Crosby to write an interesting newspaper column and flattered Ms. Fonteyn at the same time. Ms. Crosby writes, "It was a gentle and instructive rebuke from a master craftsman, and I never forgot the lesson that it instilled. Months later, when the same callow teenager interviewed Bing for her paper, she was ready to snare a superstar and a husband with a far more subtle approach."
• As a boy, W.C. Fields had a unique way of peddling newspapers. He juggled the folded newspapers, and he yelled out teasers about the stories inside the newspapers. However, he ignored regular news stories and instead boosted unusual stories, such as "Bronislaw Gimp acquires license for two-year-old sheepdog. Details on page 26."
• Lesbian comic Robin Tyler had an interesting early career. She became a Judy Garland impersonator at a bar for gay men in New York. After the police raided the bar, she was arrested along with several men in drag. The New York Post ran this odd headline: "44 Men and 1 Woman Arrested for Female Impersonation."
Mishaps
• Being one of the Three Stooges - Moe, Larry, and Curly - sometimes involved sacrifice. In 1936, the Stooges made the comedy short Ants in the Pantry. In it, the Stooges are pest exterminators, but business is slow, so their boss finds a way to get more customers: "If they don't have any bugs, givethem some!" Therefore, the Three Stooges start putting mice, ants, and moths in future customers' houses. During filming, a container of red ants broke in Moe's pocket, and they started swarming inside his clothing, leading to a lot of squirming by Moe. The director, Preston Black, loved it, saying, "Great, Moe! Keep up that squirming!" Moe remembers, "It was very funny - to everyone but me." Also in 1936, the Stooges made Slippery Silks. In this short, over 150 pies were thrown, and Moe ended up with a sore arm and a sore face because the pies that he did not throw were thrown at him. The other Stooges also suffered injuries: Larry lost a tooth while making one short, and Curly once got hit in the head while making a short and had to be attended to by a doctor. The doctor cut away some of Curly's hair so he could attend to his wound, and then he glued back the hair so Curly could resume shooting the short. (In a few shorts, Curly actually has hair.)
• Jane Russell and Bob Hope once entertained at the Paramount Theater in New York. Ms. Russell had trouble dropping off to sleep - too many drunks made noise in the hallways of her hotel across the street. One day she overslept, threw a fur coat across her nightgown, then ran across the street where Mr. Hope was getting ready to introduce her. Standing in the wings, Ms. Russell threw open her fur coat, showing Mr. Hope her nightgown. Mr. Hope giggled, then told several more jokes, giving Ms. Russell time to put on a sequined gown and some lipstick.
Memorize this. Say it to every human you meet. Stitch it on a sampler!
There is literally no point in treating any elected Republican as a sentient or functional human being ever again, they have all malfunctioned.
Evan Hurst
CBS begins the night with a RERUN'Bull', followed by '48 Hours'.
NBC opens the night on the East Coast with a RERUN'The Voice', followed by a RERUN'SNL', while on the left coast there's a LIVE'SNL', followed by a RERUN'SNL'.
'SNL' is FRESH, with Jennifer Lopez hosting, music by DaBaby.
ABC fills the night with LIVE'College Football', then pads the left coast with local crap and maybe '20/20'.
The CW offers a buncha '2½ Men'.
Faux fills the night with LIVE'College Football', then pads the left coast with local crap.
MY recycles an old 'Major Crimes', followed by another old 'Major Crimes'.
A&E has 'Live PD', followed by a FRESH'Live PD: Rewind', then a FRESH'Live PD'.
AMC offers the movie 'Christmas With The Kranks', followed by the movie 'National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation', then the movie 'National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation', again.
BBC -
[6:00AM] WEIRD WONDERS - SEASON 1 - EPISODE 1
[7:00AM] WEIRD WONDERS - SEASON 1 - EPISODE 2
[8:00AM] WEIRD WONDERS - SEASON 1 - EPISODE 3
[9:00AM] WEIRD WONDERS - SEASON 1 - EPISODE 4
[10:00AM] WEIRD WONDERS - SEASON 1 - EPISODE 5
[11:00AM] WEIRD WONDERS - SEASON 1 - EPISODE 6
[12:00PM] WEIRD WONDERS - SEASON 1 - EPISODE 7
[1:00PM] WEIRD WONDERS - SEASON 1 - EPISODE 8
[2:00PM] PLANET EARTH: SOUTH PACIFIC - SEASON 1 - EPISODE 1-Ocean of Islands
[3:00PM] PLANET EARTH: SOUTH PACIFIC - SEASON 1 - EPISODE 2-Castaways
[4:00PM] PLANET EARTH: SOUTH PACIFIC - SEASON 1 - EPISODE 3-Endless Blue
[5:00PM] PLANET EARTH: SOUTH PACIFIC - SEASON 1 - EPISODE 4-Ocean of Volcanoes
[6:00PM] PLANET EARTH: SOUTH PACIFIC - SEASON 1 - EPISODE 5-Strange Islands
[7:00PM] PLANET EARTH: THE BEST OF BLUE PLANET - SEASON 2 - EPISODE 1-The Best of Blue Planet II
[10:12PM] PLANET EARTH: SOUTH PACIFIC - SEASON 1 - EPISODE 1-Ocean of Islands
[11:21PM] PLANET EARTH: SOUTH PACIFIC - SEASON 1 - EPISODE 2-Castaways
[12:30AM] PLANET EARTH: SOUTH PACIFIC - SEASON 1 - EPISODE 3-Endless Blue
[1:39AM] PLANET EARTH: SOUTH PACIFIC - SEASON 1 - EPISODE 4-Ocean of Volcanoes
[4:00AM] PLANET EARTH: SOUTH PACIFIC - SEASON 1 - EPISODE 5-Strange Islands
[5:00AM] PLANET EARTH: THE BEST OF BLUE PLANET II - SEASON 2 - EPISODE 1-The Best of Blue Planet II (ALL TIMES EST)
Bravo has the movie 'The Twilight Saga: Eclipse', followed by the movie 'The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn: Part 1'.
Comedy Central has the movie 'Bad Santa 2', followed by the movie 'Bad Santa 2', again.
FX has the movie 'Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising', followed by the movie 'Office Christmas Party', then the movie 'The Night Before'.
History has 'Ancient Aliens', followed by a FRESH'Ancient Aliens: Declassified'.
IFC -
[6:30A] Batman - Great Train Robbery
[7:03A] Batman - I'll Be a Mummy's Uncle!
[7:36A] Batman - The Joker's Flying Saucer
[8:09A] Batman - The Entrancing Dr. Cassandra
[8:42A] Batman - Minerva, Mayhem & Millionaires
[9:15A] The Three Stooges - Back to the Woods
[9:30A] Braveheart
[1:30P] Sahara
[4:30P] X-Men Origins: Wolverine
[7:00P] The Hunger Games
[10:00P] The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
[1:00A] X-Men Origins: Wolverine
[3:30A] WarGames (ALL TIMES EST)
Sundance -
[6:00am] The Andy Griffith Show
[6:35am] The Andy Griffith Show
[7:10am] The Andy Griffith Show
[7:45am] The Andy Griffith Show
[8:20am] The Andy Griffith Show
[8:55am] The Andy Griffith Show
[9:30am] The Andy Griffith Show
[10:00am] The Andy Griffith Show
[10:30am] The Andy Griffith Show
[11:00am] M*A*S*H
[11:30am] M*A*S*H
[12:00pm] M*A*S*H
[12:30pm] M*A*S*H
[1:00pm] M*A*S*H
[1:30pm] M*A*S*H
[2:00pm] M*A*S*H
[2:30pm] M*A*S*H
[3:00pm] M*A*S*H
[3:30pm] M*A*S*H
[4:00pm] M*A*S*H
[4:30pm] M*A*S*H
[5:00pm] M*A*S*H
[5:30pm] M*A*S*H
[6:00pm] M*A*S*H
[6:30pm] M*A*S*H
[7:00pm] M*A*S*H
[7:30pm] M*A*S*H
[8:00pm] Big Jake
[10:30pm] The Shootist
[1:00am] Big Jake
[3:30am] The Shootist (ALL TIMES EST)
SyFy has the movie 'RIPD', followed by the movie 'The Magnificient Seven'.
Jane Fonda said she wants to get arrested every Friday - all to address the climate crisis. It's been four out of nine for her.
The actress and activist said she moved to Washington for four months to raise awareness about the devastating challenges that are facing the Earth.
"There is a collective crisis, requires collective action," the 81-year-old told CNN's Christiane Amanpour. "And so I decided to use my celebrity to try to raise the sense of urgency, and I moved to Washington, and I'm going to get arrested every Friday."
She calls these protests "Fire Drill Fridays." Each week, she along with other advocacy organizations gather at the US Capitol to bring attention to how the climate crisis intersects with different parts of the human life, such as militarism, women and human rights.
A federal judge on Friday indicated he'll refuse to throw out the federal antitrust lawsuits filed by Hollywood heavyweight agencies CAA, WME and UTA against the Writers Guild of America.
In a crucial hearing for the high-profile guild-vs.-agencies battle in Los Angeles today, U.S. District Court Judge Andre Birotte Jr. issued a tentative ruling against the guild's motion to dismiss the suits.
Coming just days after blocking an attempt by the Justice Department to participate in the case, Birotte put the tentative out before the nearly two-hour hearing began. The judge then heard arguments from attorneys for both sides. At the conclusion of the hearing, Birotte told the assembled attorneys and agencies reps that he would put a final ruling in the docket in a week or two.
If the tentative stands, it will be a big win for CAA, WME and UTA against the WGA in the long public and court battle over then past several months
Alanis Morissette has confirmed that she wasn't allowed to make direct eye contact with Vanilla Ice while touring with him in the early 1990s.
The 'You Oughta Know' singer - who recently announced she's about to embark on a series of anniversary shows - appeared on Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen, where she was asked by a fan what her favourite part about opening for the rapper was all those years ago.
They also quizzed her on whether there was any truth to the rumour that the 'Ice Ice Baby' hitmaker wasn't keen on his support act looking at him backstage.
"Yeah, I mean a lot of artists are overwhelmed by incredible, large amounts of stimuli, and I think me looking at him would have overstimulated him, so I just... averted my eyes," Morissette explained, as Cohen laughed: "That is the best answer ever."
A local hardware store spent less than $150 on a heartwarming commercial that many are calling the "best Christmas ad of the year."
The ad, released by Hafod Hardware, a family-owned store in Rhayader, Wales, features an adorable two-year-old managing the shop, which is actually owned by his father, Tom Jones.
Jones' holiday commercial, starring his son, Arthur, cost a remarkably low £100 - approximately $131 - to make. The store owner told Wales Online that the video's only cost was the money he spent for permission to use a cover of the 1984 Alphaville hit, "Forever Young."
Jones told Wales Online that the video was shot in a single day, with some help from his friend who is a filmmaker. Including Arthur, the advertisement features four generations of the shop owner's family.
A New Jersey man pleaded guilty Friday to a state charge stemming from a scheme that raked in more than $400,000 in online donations with a phony story about a homeless man helping a stranded woman.
Mark D'Amico pleaded guilty in state Superior Court in Burlington County to misapplication of entrusted property stemming from the late 2017 scheme.
D'Amico; his ex-girlfriend, Katelyn McClure; and homeless veteran Johnny Bobbitt faced state and federal charges. McClure and Bobbitt have already pleaded guilty to federal and state charges. D'Amico still faces federal wire fraud and money laundering conspiracy charges.
D'Amico, McClure and Bobbitt made up a story in late 2017 about Bobbitt giving $20 to help McClure when her car ran out of gas in Philadelphia, prosecutors said. The group solicited donations through GoFundMe, purportedly to help Bobbitt.
Almost no part of the tale was true, Burlington County Prosecutor Scott Coffina has said. Instead, the group met near a Philadelphia casino in October 2017 shortly before they told their story.
For decades Victoria Falls, where southern Africa's Zambezi river cascade down 100 metres into a gash in the earth, have drawn millions of holidaymakers to Zimbabwe and Zambia for their stunning views.
But the worst drought in a century has slowed the waterfalls to a trickle, fuelling fears that climate change could kill one of the region's biggest tourist attractions.
While they typically slow down during the dry season, officials said this year had brought an unprecedented decline in water levels.
"In previous years, when it gets dry, it's not to this extent. This (is) our first experience of seeing it like this," Dominic Nyambe, a seller of tourist handicrafts in his 30s said outside his shop in Livingstone, on the Zambian side.
Data from the Zambezi River Authority shows water flow at its lowest since 1995, and well under the long term average. Zambian President Edgar Lungu has called it "a stark reminder of what climate change is doing to our environment".
The 2018 eruption of Kilauea in Hawaii featured the spectacular collapse of the volcano's caldera, creating a hole nearly as deep as One World Trade Center in New York City is tall at its summit. Now new research finds that this dramatic change was triggered by only a small leak of magma from the reservoir beneath the peak.
Instantaneous and explosive caldera collapses, such as the event that formed Oregon's Crater Lake 7,700 years ago, are a better known phenomenon. But the new findings suggest that slow-motion collapse events such as Kilauea's-which are vastly different in nature-may be occurring at volcanoes around the world. In fact, a comparable one occurred at Bardarbunga's caldera in Iceland between 2014 and 2015.
"What we have learned from these two events (Kilauea and Bardarbunga) is that there may not be much warning," says geophysicist Magnus Tumi Gudmundsson, who studied the Bardarbunga collapse but was not involved in the new Kilauea research. At first, Gudmundsson says, caldera-collapse eruptions look a lot like typical eruptions. "Then, when conditions are right, the magma chamber underneath a volcano can just split apart, and magma can flow freely, and the caldera roof collapses."
The disaster took place under the watchful eyes of more scientific equipment-including drones, GPS sensors, thermal cameras and satellite-based radar-than any caldera-collapse eruption in history. "Some of the detail you get from Kilauea is unlike anything we've seen before," Gudmundsson says.
In three separate papers published this week in Science, researchers wove together much of the data from those instruments to tell the tale of Kilauea's eruption from summit to sea. The first revelation, discovered in a study led by U.S. Geological Survey geophysicist Kyle Anderson, was that the eruption caused the caldera collapse rather than the other way around. That relationship had been a geologic chicken-and-egg question debated among scientists, but at both Bardarbunga and Kilauea, the eruption clearly came first. Anderson and his team found that the rifting of the island, which occurs as gravity drags the slope of Kilauea seaward, opened up fissures for magma to drain from the volcano's reservoir and the lava lake above it. When the magma below the caldera disappeared, all the rock in its floor crumbled down more than 500 meters over an area of five square kilometers. Once the caldera floor buckled, it pressurized the whole underground magma plumbing system like a piston-increasing and prolonging the eruptive activity in the rift zone.
Oil-rich Azerbaijan planted more than half a million trees on Friday to celebrate a 14th century poet, an initiative the government said would help tackle climate change but some environmental activists called "a waste of money".
The Azeri ministry of ecology said 650,000 trees were being planted across the country to mark the 650th anniversary of the birth of Seyid Imadeddin Nesimi, whose work touched on the relation between man and nature.
Countries from India to Malawi have launched large-scale tree-planting efforts, but scientists have warned that such initiatives are not a panacea against global warming.
Protecting existing forests and restoring damaged ones is key to preventing flooding and limiting climate change by storing carbon, environmentalists say.
More than 50 polar bears have gathered on the edge of a village in Russia's far north, environmentalists and residents said, as weak Arctic ice leaves them unable to roam.
The Russian branch of the World Wildlife Fund said climate change was to blame, as unusually warm temperatures prevented coastal ice from forming.
The WWF said 56 polar bears had gathered in a one-square-kilometre (0.4-square-mile) area near the village of Ryrkaipy in Chukotka on the northeastern tip of Russia.
Polar bears regularly visit areas inhabited by humans in Arctic Russia to search for food, often in rubbish tips.
But the number of visits has been growing as the melting of Arctic ice from climate change forces the bears to spend more time on land where they compete for food.
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