Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Marc Dion: So Many Jobs (Creators Syndicate)
Even the much-despised illegal immigrant knows in his heart that things are about to get much, much better for him. Once the wall is built on the border, there will be NO MORE illegal immigrants. The illegal immigrants already here will be able to demand astronomical wages for their work as motel maids, janitors, chicken processing plant employees and pickers of salad. "Oh, yes, Senor Trump," Consuela the maid will say. "I am available to make beds at your soon-to-be-bankrupt luxury hotel, but there are not so many of us illegals around these days. I will have to be paid at least $60,000 a year."
Connie Schultz: A Christmas Story (Creators Syndicate)
"For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me." - Matthew 25:35 (NRSV)
"I don't know what part of your soul has to be missing to say, 'We'll take an infant from its mother with no provision about how they will ever get back together again.' They might never see each other again." - Cecilia Munoz to CBS News' "60 Minutes," November 2018
Froma Harrop: Are We Brave Enough for the New World of Reproduction? (Creators Syndicate)
A new medical device may change almost everything we think about making babies. It may also sweep away the current controversy over abortion while creating new ethical dilemmas. We speak of the artificial womb.
Mark Shields: The Massachusetts Curse (Creators Syndicate)
Since John F. Kennedy's 1960 election as the first Catholic president, Americans have elected chief executives from Texas (three), New York (two), Georgia, California, Arkansas and Illinois. Elizabeth Warren has many commendable qualities and a distinguished public record. But she may already be doomed for simply having one, admittedly unfair, disqualification - her Massachusetts home address.
Ted Rall: Death to the DIY Society (Creators Syndicate)
Our only hope is individual resistance. It's already begun. Many shoppers refuse to bag their groceries. Others are boycotting self-scanning checkout lines to save the jobs of flesh-and-blood cashiers. "They're trying to basically herd everyone in, get everyone used to the self-checkouts to continuously cut down on staff," a Canadian man named Dan Morris explained to the CBC. "Machines don't pay taxes. They don't pay into the pension plan." Only 11 percent of Canadians use self-checkouts.
Susan Estrich: Is the President Above the Law? (Creators Syndicate)
The Constitution establishes impeachment as the means of removal of the president by Congress. As we discover each time we go down this road, "high crimes and misdemeanors" means pretty much whatever the House and Senate think they do, which is to say it is a political standard.
Lenore Skenazy: "'Home Alone' Revisited" (Creators Syndicate)
It sounds like a sweet, funny or at least ironic story - but it's not: Right before Christmas, two Muncie, Indiana, boys were home alone watching, yes, "Home Alone" after their mom had to leave for work and couldn't find a baby sitter. For this, she was thrown into jail on $10,000 bond.
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Presenting
Michael Egan
responded:
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
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from Bruce
Anecdotes
• In April of 1960, a blizzard hit Cincinnati. Young Suzanne Farrell and her mother still made it to an audition for the National Ballet of Canada. However, a chilly journey that lasted over three hours and left no time to Suzanne to warm up took its toll on her and she did not dance well. Still, she says, she danced nowhere near as badly as the National Ballet of Canada told her mother she did. Suzanne says, "I was absolutely crushed. I was ready to give up ballet at fourteen. Then I thought it over, and decided, well, I didn't like that company very much anyway." The very next month New York City Ballet dancer Diana Adams discovered her, and Suzanne received a Ford Foundation Scholarship to study at the School of American Ballet. Of course, Suzanne became a superstar of ballet. By the way, in 1961 a representative of the National Ballet of Canada saw Suzanne taking class and said, "Should you decide to join us …." Suzanne did not let the representative finish: "Sorry, I have something better to do."
• Baseball player Colter Bean was walking to Legends Field in Tampa. Suddenly, Yankee owner George Steinbrenner came out and started yelling at some kids riding in golf carts. His point was that the carts were to be used to haul baseball players around so they didn't have to walk. The carts weren't supposed to be used for joy rides by young employees. Mr. Steinbrenner even fired one of the kids. Mr. Bean felt sorry for the kid, but the kid said, "Don't worry about it. This is the fifth time he's fired me this week."
• Art Linkletter knows about many, many funny happenings in families. For example, one small girl spent a lot of time watching workmen as they repaired the road in front of her house. Her grandmother, who was babysitting her, worried that she might annoy the workmen, so she said, "You shouldn't be out there bothering those workmen, dear." The small girl replied, "Oh, that's all right, Grandma. I'm intimate with only one of them."
• Benny Goodman was like Fred Astaire-both wanted to be great, not good, and both were willing to put in the necessary number of hours to avoid being merely good. (Being good enough is not good enough for truly gifted people.) Frank Sinatra-who also put in the necessary hours to be great-once asked Mr. Goodman why he was constantly playing the clarinet. Mr. Goodman replied, "Because if I'm not great, I'm good."
• Joan Rivers was serious about getting work when she was a struggling young comedian. She once crawled on the floor with a rose in her mouth-a gift to the secretary of a booking agent. She would sometimes write in the appointment book of a secretary to a booking agent: "This is your last chance: get Molinsky [her real name] a job or you'll be wearing cement booties."
• Animated films, even short ones, can take years to complete. Nick Park, creator of Wallace and Gromit, paid actor Peter Sallis to do voice work (he is the voice of Wallace) on the half-hour animated film A Grand Day Out. Mr. Park says, "Seven years later, I phoned to tell him I had finally made the film, and he had no idea who I was."
• At the premiere of the movie Sylvia Scarlett, audience reaction was so poor that director George Cukor and star Katherine Hepburn told producer Pandro Berman that they would make another movie for him for free. Mr. Berman turned them down, saying, "I don't want either of you ever to work for me again."
• A man once complained to Menachem Mendel of Kotzk, "God created the world in six days-and look, it's ugly!" The good Rabbi asked the man if he could do a better job than God. The man replied that yes, he could. The good rabbi then said, "What are you waiting for? Start working-right now!"
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Best Film and TV of 2018
AFI Awards Luncheon
Heading into Golden Globes weekend, awards campaigners are taking every opportunity to put their contenders in front of cameras and media. One of the most civilized events is the annual American Film Institute Awards lunch, which is more relaxed and convivial than most gatherings, because, as AFI president Bob Gazzale always points out, everybody's a winner.
The first week of January each year, top players involved with the 10 movie and 10 TV winners know all they have to do is comfortably socialize for an hour or so, eat their salmon, and applaud 20 clips. Actually, this year there were 21, as the film jury gave Alfonso Cuarón's "Roma," which was ineligible as a foreign-language film, a special award.
TV jury chief Rich Frank said his team had to sift through more than 500 scripted series. "They were tough to narrow down," he said. Among the lucky winners was "Better Call Saul" star Bob Odenkirk, who drove himself to the event in his own car.
Gazzale pointed out that "Black Panther" cinematographer Rachel Morrison was an AFI conservatory grad, along with "A Star Is Born" D.P. Matty Libatique and "First Reformed" writer-director Paul Schrader, who was in the first class. Long overdue for an Oscar (shockingly, he did not get nominated for "Taxi Driver" or "Raging Bull"), Schrader got a warm standing ovation from the crowd.
Spike Lee got laughs when Gazzale pointed out he was wearing his NYU hat. "I applied to AFI, I didn't get in!" he called out from his table. (The AFI gave him an honorary degree in 2011.) Lee has an asset as an awards campaigner: He loves working crowds, and knows how to glad-hand, charmingly.
AFI Awards Luncheon
Interview With Egyptian President
'60 Minutes'
"60 Minutes" conducted an interview with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi that they say the Egyptian government asked them not run. In an article teasing the interview, the news organization said they will proceed with the piece this Sunday and not bow to any pressure.
"The '60 Minutes' team was contacted by the Egyptian Ambassador shortly after and told the interview could not be aired. The interview will be broadcast on '60 Minutes,' Sunday, January 6 at 7:00 p.m. ET/PT on CBS," they wrote, in a post headlined "The Interview Egypt's Government Doesn't Want On TV."
The interview was conducted by show veteran Scott Pelley while the Egyptian president was in New York on a recent visit. In a brief clip released by CBS, Pelley can be seen questioning the general over the jailing of political dissidents.
"We don't have political prisoners, or prisoners of opinion," el-Sisi responded. "We are trying to stand against extremists who impose their ideology on the people. Now they are subject to a fair trial and it may take years, but we have to follow the law."
The interview comes at a much-needed time for "60 Minutes," which has been without an executive producer after longtime chief Jeff Fager exited in the wake of a #MeToo scandal. Fager was a close ally to former CBS chief Les Moonves, who was also fired by the company and denied severance (a decision he is fighting). Details from an internal investigation into CBS' culture of sexual misconduct have frequently been leaked to the press.
'60 Minutes'
Jury To Decide
Ed Sheeran
The question of whether Ed Sheeran copied Marvin Gaye's hit song "Let's Get It On" for his own track, "Thinking Out Loud", will be decided by a jury, it has been announced.
A US judge made the ruling after rejecting Sheeran's request to dismiss the lawsuit. In a decision made public on Thursday 3 January, district judge Louis Stanton said there were "substantial similarities between several of the two works' musical elements".
He also ruled that it was disputed whether the harmonic rhythm of "Let's Get It On", which was released in 1973 and hit number one in the US charts, was deserving of copyrightprotection, or whether it was too common. He said jurors "may be impressed by footage of a Sheeran performance which shows him seamlessly transitioning between the songs".
Sheeran denies copying Gaye. "Thinking Out Loud" is one of the biggest songs of his career. Released in 2014, it went on to become the first single to spend a full year in the UK top 40, and the first to be streamed over 500m times on Spotify. It won the Grammy Award for Best Pop Solo Performance and Song of the Year at the 58th Grammy Awards in 2016.
The lawsuit against Sheeran was brought by the estate and heirs of late producer Ed Townsend, who co-wrote "Let's Get It On" with Gaye. It names Sheeran, his co-writer Amy Wadge, Sony/ATC Music Publishing and Atlantic Records as defendants.
Ed Sheeran
Brother Settles Lawsuit With CBS
JonBenet Ramsey
The brother of slain Colorado child beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey has settled the lawsuit he filed against CBS Corp over a documentary theorizing that he killed her, both sides said on Friday.
Burke Ramsey's attorney, Lin Wood, said the case had been settled but declined to disclose the terms.
The four-hour CBS documentary aired in two parts in September, 2016 amid a flurry of media accounts ahead of the 20th anniversary of JonBenet's death.
At the conclusion of the CBS show, a panel of experts said it had formed the opinion that Burke Ramsey, who was 9 at the time of the killing, struck JonBenet in the head with a heavy object.
The group said it believed the parents, John and Patsy Ramsey, then staged the crime scene to make it appear an intruder was the culprit.
JonBenet Ramsey
Continue Shutdown
Hannity
Sean Hannity (R-OfRupert) urged President Trump (R-OfVlad) to dig in his heels for funding of the border wall, even if it means keeping the government closed through his State of the Union address on Jan. 29… or longer.
"As much of an inconvenience, some people that work for the government and I hope they get their back pay, it needs to continue, straight throughout State of the Union and maybe beyond," Hannity said at the end of a more than 20 minute opening monologue for his Fox News program Friday.
"The State of the Union, the president, he can take his case directly to you, we, the people. While the president should support back pay for those furloughed employees, make no mistake. No matter what the president does, he must hold firm on this border wall funding from Congress," Hannity said.
After initially being open to a deal with Democrats, Trump made the decision to shut down the government after facing intense criticism from allies on the right, including Sean Hannity (R-Michael Cohen's Other Client), Ann Coulter (R-Adam's Apple) and Rush Limbaugh (R-Vicodin).
Hannity
Gov. Inslee To Pardon Pot Convictions
Washington
More than six years after the state legalized the adult use of marijuana, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee said Friday he plans to pardon thousands of people convicted of small-time possession charges - the latest in a series of moves by states and cities to ease the burdens people face from having minor criminal records for using pot.
The Democrat, who is mulling a 2020 presidential run, made the announcement at a cannabis industry summit in SeaTac, south of Seattle. Inslee said he was creating an expedited process that would allow about 3,500 people to apply for and receive a pardon without having to hire a lawyer or go to court.
"We have people who have this burden on their shoulders from a simple, one-time marijuana possession from maybe 20 years ago, and that's impeding the ability of people to live their lives," Inslee said in an interview. "It can damage their ability to get financing for a home; it can damage their ability to get financing for colleges, even simple things like going on a field trip with your kids.
"We should not be punishing people for something that is no longer illegal," he said.
Inslee's plan appears to be the first that creates a streamlined process for pardoning misdemeanor marijuana possession convictions statewide, though Michigan's governor-elect, Democrat Gretchen Whitmer, has suggested she will consider doing so. In Washington, people will be able to use a simple form on the governor's website to ask for a pardon of a single conviction dating as far back as 1998.
Washington
"Autocephaly"
Ukraine
The spiritual head of Orthodox Christians worldwide formally granted independence to the Ukrainian church on Saturday, marking an historic split from Russia which Ukrainian leaders see as vital to the country's security
The decree, granting "autocephaly", was signed by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew at a service with the head of the Ukrainian church Metropolitan Epifaniy and President Petro Poroshenko in St George's Cathedral in Istanbul.
The patriarchate, the seat of the spiritual leader of some 300 million Orthodox Christians worldwide, endorsed Ukraine's request for the new church in October. The decree, or Tomos, will be handed to Epifaniy at a ceremony on Sunday, completing the process of recognition by the Ecumenical Patriarchate.
Ukraine last month chose 39-year-old Epifaniy to head the new church, in a move which Poroshenko compared to Ukraine's referendum for independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.
The move incensed Moscow, and prompted President Vladimir Putin to warn of possible bloodshed in his annual news conference. Relations between Ukraine and Russia collapsed after Moscow's seizure of Crimea in 2014.
Ukraine
Demand Has Spawned a Woolly Mammoth 'Rush'
Ivory
With the ban on the international trade of ivory, dealers are increasingly turning to a surprisingly abundant alternative: the tusks of woolly mammoths preserved in Siberian permafrost. But at what cost?
A new AFP report is highlighting the burgeoning trade in woolly mammoth tusks-a development that, through the most optimistic lens, could ease pressure on living elephants, result in new paleontological discoveries, and provide new job opportunities for people living in a remote region of northern Siberia. On the dark side, the prospecting of woolly mammoth tusks could damage sensitive permafrost regions and further perpetuate the demand for ivory.
This "mammoth rush," as one collector described it to the AFP, is happening primarily in Yakutia, a northern area of Siberia that's about five times the size of France. According to the AFP, this region is absolutely littered with the remains of woolly mammoths, a species that went extinct around 4,000 years ago. During the Pleistocene, Yakutia, which borders the Arctic Ocean, was home to an untold number of woolly mammoths, who dominated the landscape for thousands of years. Today, Yakutia is covered in permafrost, and the frozen remains of these once-majestic creatures can often be found sticking out from the surface.
China banned the import and sale of ivory at the end of 2017, prompting traders to turn to the remains of mammoths, a tusked mammal and a distant relative of modern elephants. In Russia, all that's needed to prospect and trade woolly mammoth ivory is a permit, and the practice isn't fully regulated. What's more, woolly mammoths aren't protected by international agreements on endangered species because, well, they're not endangered-they're extinct.
According to the AFP, Russia exported nearly 80 tons of "ice ivory," as the mammoth tusks are called, in 2017, of which 80 percent went to China, where ivory is typically carved and turned into sculptures and trinkets. High-quality mammoth ivory can sell in China for over $1,000 per kilogram, or $455 per pound, so it's a lucrative business, the AFP reports-and an estimated 550,000 tons of mammoth tusks are buried in Yakutia. If true, this equates to roughly $500 billion worth of ivory. By comparison, the oil sands in Alberta, Canada, are worth $1.4 trillion. Though to be fair, a glut of ivory in the market would send prices plummeting.
Ivory
Likely To Live Longer
Holocaust Survivors
The horrors of the Holocaust were once thought to have inflicted a deadly legacy on the health of survivors.
Torture, prolonged malnutrition and the daily grind of living in unhygienic, cold and damp concentration camps left victims suffering a range of chronic illnesses decades after they were liberated.
But a new study suggests that those who survived the Holocaust actually lived longer than others from the same era who were spared the atrocities. Researchers looked at the health records of 38,000 victims who were born in Europe between the years 1911 and 1945 and compared them to 35,000 people born in Israel during the same years.
They found that although they were more likely to develop chronic conditions such as heart disease, cancer and diabetes, Holocaust survivors were still substantially more likely to live for longer.
While 41 per cent of the control group had died by the study period of 1998 to 2017, just 25 per cent of survivors of the camps were dead.
Holocaust Survivors
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