from Bruce
Anecdotes
Language
• A grandmother went to see Eve Ensler’s Vagina Monologues with some family and friends. After the performance, she told her granddaughter, “Honey, next time I get together with my lady friends, we are going to talk about our vaginas. And if they say WHAT are you talking about? I’m going to say C*NT, C*NT.”
• Yogi Berra once showed Phil Rizzuto through his new home. Mr. Rizzuto complimented him by saying, “Wow, Yogi! What a beautiful mansion you’ve got here!” “What do you mean, Phil?” Yogi asked. “It’s nothing but a bunch of rooms.”
Letter
• Some fans are obsessive. One such fan assaulted a radio deejay because he would not constantly play her favorite Elvis songs. He found an innovative way to get back at her. He stuffed himself with pizza, carrots, candy, and wine, and then he vomited into a plastic bag. To the vomit he added an assortment of pills. Then he mailed the mess to the fan along with a letter saying that the National Elvis Fan Club wanted to give her “Elvis’ Last Supper.”
• At one time, a rumor stated that President John Adams had sent General C.C. Pinckney to France so that he could pick out two French girls for himself and two for President Adams. In a letter to William Tudor, President Adams joked about the rumor, “If this be true, General Pinckney has kept them all for himself and cheated me out of my two.”
• Journalist George Jean Nathan of the American Mercury used to receive 200 hate letters a day — he paid attention only to the ones that were well written.
Media
• After “Shoeless Joe” Jackson was thrown out of professional baseball because he was accused of helping to throw the 1919 World Series — despite batting .375 in the series — he received a telephone call from a radio show called We the People. The producer of the show wanted Mr. Jackson to come to New York and be interviewed. When Mr. Jackson asked how much money he would receive, he learned that he would earn no money, but be given only transportation and a hotel room. Mr. Jackson said, “You paid Lou Gehrig $5,000 to speak on your program not long ago. If Lou was worth that much to you, then I am, too” — and he hung up.
• National League umpire Harry Wendelsted made a mistake as a rookie umpire in the Georgia-Florida League when he first ordered his uniform — he didn’t order the extra room in the seat that allowed for comfortable crouching behind home plate. In fact, his pants were so tight that they split when he crouched behind home plate for the first game of the season. The next day, the Brunswick, Georgia newspaper carried a photograph of his rear end in his split pants under the headline: “Official Opening.”
• Early in the careers of ice dancers Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean, members of the media thought that they were romantically involved because of the romantic programs they performed on the ice, so the media constantly asked them, “When are you getting married?” Through necessity, they developed responses to keep the media at bay: “Not yet” and “Not this week.” (Eventually, they did get married — but not to each other.)
• On the Today show, Peter Townsend, a former fiancé of Princess Margaret, was interviewed by Barbara Walters, who of course asked about his recent break-up with the Princess. He replied that he was tired of answering questions about it. Ms. Walters asked, “Well, if you’re sick of talking about it, why is it in all your publicity releases?”
***
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***
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Presenting
Michael Egan
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION
BANDCAMP MUSIC
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION OF BANDCAMP MUSIC
Music: "Beer Drinking Woman"
Album: BIG JOE JUMPS AGAIN!
Artist: Big Joe Duskin
Artist Location: Cincinnati, Ohio
Record Company: Yellow Dog Records
Record Company Location: Memphis, Tennessee
Info:
“Timeless music from the legendary patriarch of Cincinnati blues and boogie piano.”
“Yellow Dog Records carries the living lore of authentic American music into the present. Featuring new interpretations of Blues, Jazz, Soul, and Americana styles by established and emerging artists, Yellow Dog Records is where innovation confronts tradition. What’s left after the collision? Inspired explorations of America's musical roots.”
Price: $1 (USD) for track; $8 (USD) for 16-track album
Genre: Blues. Boogie.
Links:
BIG JOE JUMPS AGAIN!
Big Joe Duskin on Bandcamp
Yellow Dog Records
Other Links:
Bruce’s Music Recommendations: FREE pdfs
David Bruce's Amazon Author Page
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David Bruce's Blog #1
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Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Stephen Suggests
Twofer
The Kentucky Waterfall, Camaro Crash Helmet, Missouri Compromise ...
New Venture
Michael Egan
Reader Comment
meme
some guy
Thanks, Guy!
Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
Reader Comment
Current Events
Linda >^..^<
We are all only temporarily able bodied.
Thanks, Linda!
that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny and dry, but on the brisk side (for these parts).
Annual Moby-Dick Marathon
Sam Waterston
This year’s Moby-Dick Marathon, the annual cover-to-cover reading of Herman Melville’s iconic man-versus whale novel hosted by the New Bedford Whaling Museum, kicks off on Jan. 7.
This year’s celebrity reader, who traditionally gets things started with the words “Call me Ishmael,” is actor Sam Waterston, who was nominated for a best male actor Oscar for the 1984 movie “The Killing Fields” and is known for his work on the “Law and Order” television series.
The nonstop reading, again a virtual event this year, takes about 25 hours to complete.
Although this is his first time at the museum, Waterston is a Melville aficionado who once read the part of Ishmael in a 2001 celebration of the 150th anniversary of “Moby-Dick” at Tanglewood.
The marathon, which has been held since 1997, ends Sunday Jan. 9.
Sam Waterston
Belle Center, Ohio
Betty White
Betty White, one of America's most beloved celebrities, died Friday at the age of 99, just short of her 100th birthday.
Few people, however, know she lived briefly in Ohio for a few months in an area county, and she hated the experience.
White married World War II pilot Dick "Bud" Barker in 1945, and she planned to live with him in California.
However, she recounted Barker instead drove her to Belle Center, a village in Logan County. She called Belle Center a chicken farm. They lived there with Barker's mother and father.
"They would send me out to kill a chicken and bring it in for dinner," White was quoted in a Daily Beast article from about 10 years ago. White and Barker divorced later that year.
Betty White
New Series For CNN+
Anderson Cooper
Anderson Cooper will host a new parenting show for CNN+, the upcoming subscription streaming service from CNN, while a current online series will move to the new platform.
Parental Guidance with Anderson Cooper, to air weekly, will feature Cooper consulting with experts on navigating the challenges of life as a working father. Cooper’s son Wyatt was born in 2020.
The network also said that Cooper’s Anderson Cooper Full Circle, currently a twice-a-week digital series that started in 2018, will move to CNN+. On the show, Cooper interviews authors, entertainers and other figures outside the D.C. news cycle. He also answers viewer questions.
Cooper’s projects are the latest to be announced for CNN+, to launch in the first quarter of the new year. Chris Wallace recently departed Fox News for the streaming service, and other series will feature Kasie Hunt and Eva Longoria.
Anderson Cooper
Wild Rant
Andy Cohen
Mere minutes into 2022, and against the backdrop of a celebratory crowd at Times Square, Andy Cohen was not going to let Bill de Blasio ride off into the post-mayoral sunset without a "rant," as his silver-haired CNN colleague would call it.
"Watching Mayor de Blasio do his victory lap dance after four years of the crappiest term as the mayor of New York ... the only thing that Democrats and Republicans can agree on is what a horrible mayor he has been so Sayonara sucka!" Cohen said.
As Cohen spoke into the camera, wearing a tan puffy coat and bright blue turtleneck, Cooper repeated, "Don't go on a rant."
"Is that how you want to start the new year?" Cooper asked.
Also during Friday night's special, Cohen encouraged his parents — aged 90 and 85 — to have an edible with him and took a shot on-air with Cooper.
Andy Cohen
Conspiracy Theories
Jan. 6
Millions of Americans watched the events in Washington last Jan. 6 unfold on live television. Police officers testified to the violence and mayhem. Criminal proceedings in open court detailed what happened.
Yet the hoaxes, conspiracy theories and attempts to rewrite history persist, muddying the public’s understanding of what actually occurred during the most sustained attack on the seat of American democracy since the War of 1812.
By excusing former President Donald Trump (R-Lock Him Up) of responsibility, minimizing the mob’s violence and casting the rioters as martyrs, falsehoods about the insurrection aim to deflect blame for Jan. 6 while sustaining Trump’s unfounded claims about the free and fair election in 2020 that he lost.
Spread by politicians, broadcast by cable news pundits and amplified by social media, the falsehoods are a stark reminder of how many Americans may no longer trust their own institutions or their own eyes.
Several different conspiracy theories have emerged in the year since the insurrection, according to an analysis of online content by media intelligence firm Zignal Labs on behalf of The Associated Press. Unfounded claims that the rioters were members of antifa went viral first, only to be overtaken by a baseless claim blaming FBI operatives. Other theories say the rioters were peaceful and were framed for crimes that never happened.
Jan. 6
100 Years
Leaded Fuel
On the frosty morning of Dec. 9, 1921, in Dayton, Ohio, researchers at a General Motors lab poured a new fuel blend into one of their test engines. Immediately, the engine began running more quietly and putting out more power.
The new fuel was tetraethyl lead. With vast profits in sight—and very few public health regulations at the time—General Motors Co. rushed gasoline diluted with tetraethyl lead to market despite the known health risks of lead. They named it “Ethyl” gas.
By the early 1920s, the hazards of lead were well known—even Charles Dickens and Benjamin Franklin had written about the dangers of lead poisoning.
When GM began selling leaded gasoline, public health experts questioned its decision. One called lead a serious menace to public health, and another called concentrated tetraethyl lead a “malicious and creeping” poison.
General Motors and Standard Oil waved the warnings aside until disaster struck in October 1924. Two dozen workers at a refinery in Bayway, New Jersey, came down with severe lead poisoning from a poorly designed GM process. At first they became disoriented, then burst into insane fury and collapsed into hysterical laughter. Many had to be wrestled into straitjackets. Six died, and the rest were hospitalized. Around the same time, 11 more workers died and several dozen more were disabled at similar GM and DuPont plants across the US.
Leaded Fuel
Bill Gates' Nuclear Reactor
Wyoming
The Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd are set to cooperate with the United States and Bill Gates' venture company to build a high-tech nuclear reactor in Wyoming, the daily Yomiuri reported on Saturday.
The parties will sign an agreement as early as January for JAEA and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries to provide technical support and data from Japan's own advanced reactors, the report said citing multiple unidentified sources.
TerraPower, an advanced nuclear power venture founded by Gates, is set to open its Natrium plant in Wyoming in 2028. The U.S. government will provide funding to cover half of the $4 billion project.
Terrapower had initially explored the prospect of building an experimental nuclear plant with state-owned China National Nuclear Corp, until it was forced to seek new partners after the administration of Donald Trump (R-Lock Him Up) restricted nuclear deals with China.
Wyoming
Durable Concrete
Ancient Rome
Among the many popular tourist sites in Rome is an impressive 2000-year-old mausoleum along the Via Appia known as the Tomb of Caecilia Metella, a noblewoman who lived in the first century CE. Lord Byron was among those who marveled at the structure, even referencing it in his epic poem Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812-1818). Now scientists have analyzed samples of the ancient concrete used to build the tomb, describing their findings in a paper published in October in the Journal of the American Ceramic Society.
Like today's Portland cement (a basic ingredient of modern concrete), ancient Roman concrete was basically a mix of a semi-liquid mortar and aggregate. Portland cement is typically made by heating limestone and clay (as well as sandstone, ash, chalk, and iron) in a kiln. The resulting clinker is then ground into a fine powder, with just a touch of added gypsum—the better to achieve a smooth, flat surface. But the aggregate used to make Roman concrete was made up fist-size pieces of stone or bricks
In his treatise de Architectura (circa 30 CE), the Roman architect and engineer Vitruvius wrote about how to build concrete walls for funerary structures that could endure for a long time without falling into ruins. He recommended the walls be at least two feet thick, made of either "squared red stone or of brick or lava laid in courses." The brick or volcanic rock aggregate should be bound with mortar comprised of hydrated lime and porous fragments of glass and crystals from volcanic eruptions (known as volcanic tephra).
Almost nothing is known about Caecilia Metella, the noblewoman whose remains were once interred in the tomb, other than that she was the daughter of a Roman consul, Quintus Caecilius Metellus Creticus. She married Marcus Licinius Crassus, whose father (of the same name) was part of the First Triumvirate, along with Julius Caesar and Pompey the Great. It was likely her son—also named Marcus Licinius Crassus, because why make it easy for historians to keep track of the family genealogy?—who ordered the construction of the mausoleum, likely built sometimes between 30 and 10 BCE.
Ancient Rome
World's First Wooden Satellite
Japan
A plan is underway in Japan to launch the world’s first satellite made partially of wood in 2023, as its development team aims to harness the environmental friendliness and low cost of wood in space development.
A satellite whose exterior is made of wood will burn up upon re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere after the end of its operation, creating less burden on the environment, according to the team comprised of Kyoto University and Sumitomo Forestry Co.
In addition, it will be cheaper to make than by conventional methods using aluminum, the current mainstream material for a satellite. Because electromagnetic waves can penetrate wood, the satellite can house an antenna inside.
The planned satellite will be a cube with 10-centimeter sides. Its outside will be covered in wood and solar cells, and it will hold an electronic substrate inside.
The team, led by Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Takao Doi, plans to attach to the apparatus wooden sheets with varying hardness, taken from several tree species. The sheets will remain exposed in outer space for about nine months to check their deterioration.
Japan
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