Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Paul Krugman: The Art of the Imaginary Deal (NY Times)
On trade, Trump is a rebel without a clue.
Greg Sargent: Democrats have a big opportunity to deal Trump a crushing blow (Washington Post)
President Trump and Republicans just ran the most virulently xenophobic midterm election campaign in recent memory, closing on a message that plastered the country with dark and terrifying imagery depicting immigrants as violent criminal invaders. They were rewarded by an epic wipeout: The Democrats' national lead in House votes is now nearly 10 million, the largest midterm raw-vote margin in U.S. history.
Alexandra Petri: Don't mind us! We are just making the voting more fair. (Washington Post Satire)
Look, it has come to our attention that people in this state are not being correctly represented. By "correctly represented" I mean "represented by Republicans." This is why we as a legislature are taking steps to make sure the voice of the people can be resoundingly heard. You would think doing something like voting would make your voice heard, but voting only muddles things. Sometimes, due to some kind of confusion or flaw in the system, voters do not select Republicans. It is this strange tendency of hundreds of thousands - nay, millions! - of Democratic ballots to appear in boxes each Election Day that has left us so unshakably convinced that voter fraud is rampant.
Sam Levine: Amid North Carolina Election Probe, Voters Are Scared, Confused And Angry (Huffington Post)
One woman who gave evidence to the state said she was scared what would happen to her.
Alison Flood: P is for pterodactyl, T is for tsunami: the 'worst alphabet book' becomes a bestseller (The Guardian)
A picture book dedicated to English's strangest quirks has made the New York Times bestseller list, with the publisher scrambling to reprint. How did the rapper behind it dream it up?
Emma Brokes: "Mary Poppins: why we need a spoonful of sugar more than ever" (The Guardian)
The Emily Blunt reboot reintroduces PL Travers' nanny for uncertain times but is she a feminist?
Mary Beard: Why go to Copenhagen? (TLS)
The Glyptotek is really worth going to see, and includes one of the best collections of Roman portraits in the world, not to mention a wonderful internal Wintergarden and a great cafe. (I had brilliant curried herring for lunch.) But it's also trying to link its ancient holdings (and expertise) with modern art. What's not to like?
Mary Beard: How do you celebrate your 100th birthday? (TLS)
It made me wonder how I would like to celebrate my own 100th in the unlikely event that I made it. All that sounds fun . . . but can I put in a plea also for a nice little dinner with whichever of my mates are still alive, accompanied by copious quantities of champagne and claret, at which we will behave exactly as we want (whether that's counting our blessings, moaning about our creaky knees, or bitching about the irritating habits of all those spritely 60 year olds).
Danny Heitman: The slender volumes of Notting Hill Editions are treats for the mind. (Weekly Standard)
E.B. White, who died in 1985 at age 86, was one of the most celebrated essayists of the 20th century, but he surely knew that most people wouldn't remember him for the sublimely expressed first-person reflections he published in the New Yorker and Harper's. Those pieces, collected in such volumes as One Man's Meat and Essays of E.B. White, remain reliably in print, treasured by an ardent band of devotees. But it's White's children's books, including Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little, that really keep his name before the reading public. For many decades now, fiction, not nonfiction, has been the surest path to literary immortality.
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Presenting
Michael Egan
answered:
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
from Bruce
Anecdotes
• As a young man, Benjamin Franklin visited Cotton Mather. Mr. Mather led him along a narrow, dark corridor that had a low beam, and he warned Mr. Franklin, "Stoop! Stoop!" Mr. Franklin didn't understand what he meant, with the result that he banged his head against the beam. Mr. Mather then advised him, "Let this be a caution to you not always to hold your head so high. Stoop, young man, stoop as you go through the world - and you'll miss many hard thumps."
• Throughout his life, Arturo Toscanini studied music. When he was an old man, he was found in his bed studying the scores of Beethoven's nine symphonies, although he had conducted the symphonies hundreds of times and had memorized the scores. When his son asked why he was studying scores that he so intimately knew, Toscanini replied, "Now that I am an old man I want to come a little closer to the secrets of this music."
• Comedian Robin Williams dressed in drag when the character he was playing in Mrs. Doubtfire disguised himself as an elderly nanny. The disguise was very effective. While filming in North Beach, California, Mr. Williams - dressed as Mrs. Doubtfire - stopped at a newsstand and looked through Playboy. A college student saw him and told a friend, "That old lady sure is hip, man."
• While visiting China, African-American author Alice Walker met the great Chinese woman writer Ding Ling, who had been imprisoned for opposing the subjection of women. Although Ding Ling was still writing at age 80, she wished that she could have back the time she had lost while being persecuted. She told Ms. Walker, "Oh, to be 67 again!"
• When Martha Graham was nearly 80 years old, dancer Tim Wengerd saw her crying bitterly in the dance studio. She explained that she had had a dream in which she was dancing, then she had awakened and looked at her hands, which were badly crippled by arthritis. Knowing that she was incapable of ever dancing again, she had begun to cry.
• Latin singer Ricky Martin, famous especially for the huge hit "Livin' la Vida Loca" ("Living the Crazy Life"), sang when he was a teenager as a member of the Latin boy band Menudo, but he left the group before he turned 18. He had to - 17 is the group's mandatory retirement age.
• Frances Perkins, Secretary of Labor under Franklin Delano Roosevelt, had a feisty grandfather. At age 104, he ordered a new pair of boots and requested that the cobbler do an especially good job on them as "very few men die after the age of 99."
• When Noah Webster visited John Adams, the aged ex-President told him, "I inhabit a weak, frail, decayed tenement, open to the winds, and broken in upon by the storms. What is worse, from all I can learn, the landlord does not intend to repair."
• When playwright Lillian Hellman was aged and unable to climb stairs on her own she hired a strong UCLA student to carry her up and down the stairs of her home.
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© Copyright Bruce D. Bruce; All Rights Reserved
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Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
JD took the day off.
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Back to sunny and seasonal.
Concert Film
Aretha Franklin
The long-shelved Aretha Franklin concert film Amazing Grace will receive a nationwide release in early 2019. Following the Queen of Soul's death in August, the 1972 film was finally unveiled at the DOC NYC festival ahead its Oscar-qualifying run in Los Angeles and New York.
Franklin's estate and film distributor Neon announced an agreement for the North American release of Amazing Grace, which captures the then-29-year-old Franklin teaming with the choir at the New Bethel Baptist Church in Watts, Los Angeles.
"Amazing Grace is the heart and soul of Aretha Franklin," Sabrina Owens, Franklin's niece and personal representative of the Aretha Franklin Estate, said in a statement. "This film is authentic and is my aunt to her core. Our family couldn't be more excited for audiences to experience the genius of her work and spirit through this film."
While the Sydney Pollack-directed concert film remained unreleased due to Franklin's dissatisfaction with the finished product as well as technical and legal issues, Rolling Stone deemed the resulting soundtrack one of the Queen of Soul's greatest albums.
Aretha Franklin
Doctor Who
Jodie Whittaker
Jodie Whittaker is set to go on more adventures aboard the Tardis.
The Doctor Who star has confirmed she will return as the Time Lord in season 12 of the BCC's iconic sci-fi series.
It was announced in July 2017 that Whittaker had been picked as the 13th Doctor, succeeding to Peter Capaldi.
The casting decision was met with excitement as Whittaker was the first woman to ever get the part since Doctor Who's debut in 1963.
The show first ran from 1963 to 1989, before being brought back in 2005 in an acclaimed revival.
Jodie Whittaker
'Tea at Five'
Faye Dunaway
Faye Dunaway will return to Broadway after 37 years to star as a Hollywood legend.
The Oscar winner will play Katharine Hepburn in a new version of Matthew Lombardo's 2002 play Tea at Five, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
John Tillinger is set to direct the play, which is based on Hepburn's own memoir Me: Stories of My Life, as she reflects on her career and her relationship with Spencer Tracy.
Tea at Five first debuted with Kate Mulgrew in the role, to great critical acclaim, although Dunaway will star in a reworked version of the show.
Dunaway made her Broadway debut in 1962 in the original production of Robert Bolt's A Man for All Seasons.
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Faye Dunaway
Familiar Faces
James Bond 25
The next James Bond movie will feature several familiar faces.
Léa Seydoux, Ralph Fiennes, Ben Wishaw and Naomie Harris are all set to return to the franchise in the next instalment of the suave spy's adventures, currently known as Bond 25.
Director Cary Joji Fukunaga told the Daily Mail that Seydoux "will be returning" before confirming that Fiennes, Wishaw, and Harris are also slated to appear in the upcoming film.
It was announced in September this year that Fukunaga would replace Danny Boyle as director of the next Bond movie. Producers said Boyle left due to creative differences.
Fukunaga is the first American filmmaker ever to direct a Bond movie.
James Bond 25
Massive Bet On Cannabis
Altria
Tobacco giant Altria is jumping on the cannabis bandwagon.
The company announced a $1.8 billion (C$2.4 billion) investment in cannabis company Cronos Group. Altria has agreed to buy 146.2 million shares at closing at a price of C$16.25 per share. This investment by Altria would represent a 45% equity stake in Cronos with warrant to increase ownership to 55% over the next four years.
"Investing in Cronos Group as our exclusive partner in the emerging global cannabis category represents an exciting new growth opportunity for Altria," said Howard Willard, Altria's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer.
As part of the agreement, Altria will be able to nominate four members to Cronos Group's board of directors. The board will increase from five to seven members.
Shares of other cannabis companies rallied after the announcement. Canopy Growth (CGC) was up 2.6%. Tilray (TLRY) was up 5.6%.
Altria
Global Warming
'Great Dying'
Extreme global warming that left ocean animals unable to breathe triggered Earth's biggest ever mass extinction, according to new research.
Around 95 per cent of marine species and 70 per cent of life on land was wiped out in the event often referred to as "The Great Dying", which struck 252 million years ago
Previous studies have linked it with a series of massive volcanic eruptions in Siberia that filled the atmosphere with greenhouse gases.
But precisely what made the oceans so inhospitable to life has remained an unanswered question until now.
The new study, reported in the journal Science, suggests as temperatures soared the warmer water could not hold enough oxygen for most marine creatures to survive.
'Great Dying'
Sued Again
Gene Simmons
KISS singer Gene Simmons is being sued for sexual battery.
According to documents initially reported by The Blast, a woman - identified only as Jane Doe - claims the musician groped her during the opening of one of his Rock & Brews restaurant in 2016.
The woman says she was working as a dishwasher at the establishment. After agreeing to take a photo with Simmons in the kitchen, she claims he "reached over and forcefully placed his hand on her vagina, completely covering it."
The complaint also sees Jane Doe allege she saw Simmons behaving "in a sexually charged manner with other women," claiming he touched other women's hair and "tell them to unbutton their shirts."
Simmons was previously sued for sexual battery in December last year. An unnamed radio personality claimed the singer groped her, accusations he denied. The case was settled in court in July.
Gene Simmons
Earliest Strain Of Plague
Stone Age Europe
DNA has been collected of 5,000-year-old plague bacteria, taking us the closest we've come to the origins of the dreaded disease. In the process thinking about the basis for one of Europe's most important cultural shifts has been challenged.
More than 5,000 years ago Europe was still in the stone age, but very different from the vision that term might conjure up. Although metalwork was primitive, mega-settlements of 10,000-20,000 people had sprung up in what is now Romania and Ukraine, suggesting a complex society and extensive trading routes.
Then, fairly suddenly, this civilization was wiped out and replaced by Bronze Age people from the east. We also know that plague swept through the region. Dr Simon Rasmussen of the Technical University of Denmark argues samples of plague bacteria show these two events were related, but not in the way people have thought.
Where previously it was considered likely the plague arrived with herders from the Asian steppe, enabling them to overcome the far more populous Europeans who lacked resistance to the disease, Rasmussen argues the plague came first. The depopulated continent it left behind would have been much easier to conquer.
In Cell, Rasmussen describes genetic sequences of the Y. pestis bacterium collected from a 20-year-old woman who died some 4,900 years ago in what is now western Sweden. Given her age, and the number of people buried in the same grave who died around the same time, one of whom also carried the same plague strain, a plague epidemic appears likely.
Stone Age Europe
180-Million-Years-Old
Fossilized Blubber
Scientists have found 180-million-year-old blubber from a true sea monster, the ancient ichthyosaur, according to the BBC. The fossilized specimen is very well-preserved, and it's already answering some questions about this Jurassic-era sea creature.
The discovery has led scientists to confirm that the ichthyosaur was warm-blooded, which is rare in reptiles. The ichthyosaur had skin somewhat like that of modern dolphins and whales and did not have scales. The skin recovered with the recent find still has some of the camouflage patterns these ancient creatures developed to swim stealthily through the water.
Ichthyosaurs share many traits with modern dolphins and share some characteristics with sea turtles. The specimen came from the Urweltmuseum Hauff in Germany. It was discovered in the Holzmaden quarry, where several other well-preserved Jurassic Period fossils have been found.
Remnants of internal organs and the body outline is clearly visible in the fossil, according to scientists.
"Remarkably, the fossil is so well-preserved that it is possible to observe individual cellular layers within its skin," said Johan Lindgren of the Lund University in Sweden.
Fossilized Blubber
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