Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Marc Dion: Pray God It Comes Hard (Creators Syndicate)
I'm not so sure that I believe in justice anymore or that it's here in the country where I was born, where a beaten and bloodied Constitution means only that you can own as many guns as you want. If there is justice, if there is a turning-away, if there is a time when we wearily plod away from a silly little dictator who promised us only that we could finally take a swing at black people and homosexuals, then I hope it comes hard. Pray God it comes hard.
Lenore Skenazy: Bureaucrats Count Cuddling as Wasted Time at Day Care (Creators Syndicate)
A couple of weeks ago, an early childhood center in Washington state received some attention for tearing down a swing set so kids wouldn't be tempted to swing for more time than regulations permit.
Susan Estrich: The Fixer (Creators Syndicate)
I have to admit I was a little insulted when Michael Cohen explained that his job as Donald Trump's lawyer was to be his "fixer." [ ... ] You fix things by getting there before the fire, by working with management and the board to review culture and complaints and concerns and situations so they don't plague the company, or the candidate. [ ... ] The thing is, Michael Cohen didn't fix anything. Fixing things involves solving problems, not creating new ones, much less producing documentary evidence of your lies and disregard for the law, all of which he did. He was a terrible lawyer, as well as a criminal one.
Mark Shields: Peace Begins With a Smile (Creators Syndicate)
Watching the almost cultlike submissiveness of this GOP Congress to this GOP president, you get the feeling that if Scripture is right that the meek will one day inherit the earth, today's House and Senate Republicans can confidently look forward to becoming land barons.
Ted Rall: "Trump's Foreign Policy: Hated by Pundits but Popular With Voters" (Creators Syndicate)
Trump's late-2018 announcement that he planned to withdraw 2,000 U.S. troops from the meat grinder of Syria's brutal civil war prompted bipartisan dismay. Next, the new Qatar peace framework to end U.S. involvement in Afghanistan had establishment politicos and pundits reviving their false hoary canard that America's "abandonment" of Afghanistan after the Soviets withdrew in 1989 led to 9/11. Now, Trump's getting attacked for trying to reach a nuclear disarmament deal with North Korea (possible bonus: a formal end to the Korean War). De-escalation? Why, that could cause peace! What could be a more dangerous threat to American interests?
Froma Harrop: Privacy Will Belong to a New Top 1 Percent (Creators Syndicate)
Actually, privacy isn't dead for an elite group of Americans who avoid modern technology, particularly the online kind. A friend pushing 90 has never owned a cellphone. He doesn't go online, doesn't take photos or even do email. About the only way to invade his privacy would be for FBI agents to break in and place a bug. And that would be a massive waste of the taxpayers' money. Incomewise, this man is somewhere in the bottom 25 percent. Bezos, the world's richest man, sits at the tippy top of the .0001 percent. Privacywise, however, my friend occupies the top 1 percent. Bezos scrapes in the bottom 1 percent - especially since the National Enquirerdevoted 11 of its precious pages to his extramarital affair with one Lauren Sanchez.
Froma Harrop: I Don't Really Own That Ridiculous Muscle Car. Let Me Explain (Creators Syndicate)
My older brother in Florida owns a 2007 Ford Mustang Shelby. It has 500 horsepower and a six-speed manual transmission. Color: gimme-another-ticket red. When I visited, he let me drive it. […] One Saturday night, I drove another elderly relative to downtown Lake Worth for dinner. I stopped in front of the restaurant, putting on the hazard lights while he tried to extricate himself from the passenger seat. A police car, lights flashing, raced up beside me. I, or rather the car, must have looked like "trouble." The officer peered in to see who was at the wheel. He saw me adjusting my glasses as an 82-year-old was struggling to get out. He made a big shrug. I shrugged back.
Connie Schultz: In Trump's America, Kindness Is an Act of Resistance (Creators Syndicate)
[Ivanka Trump's] disdain for workers does not have to become our personal policy. In Donald Trump's America, kindness is an act of resistance. So we thank Ivanka Trump for this opportunity to offer a few reminders of how to treat some of the people whom others too often mistreat just because they can. If you see a tip jar at a coat check, bar or counter, ask who gets the money intended for workers. I've been writing about tip jars since 2004, and I know that too often, bosses steal money intended for their employees. This tip theft ends as soon as customers find out about it. There's a reason we never see signs that read, "All tips go to management."
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Presenting
Michael Egan
took the day off.
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Reader Suggestion
Planned Parenthood
Hope I'm not too late. I found this on Twitter and am happy to see so many corporations I support, and some that I don't, supporting Planned Parenthood. We relied heavily on PP before we got decent health insurance and am proud to support them in return. Spread the link far and wide and delight in thwarting the Rs.
from Bruce
Anecdotes
• Lots of people asked President Abraham Lincoln for favors such as being appointed to political offices. One day, he found a way to quickly get rid of such people. He was ill when a favor-seeker came in to see him. President Lincoln explained that he was ill with what might be smallpox, "but you needn't be scared. I'm only in the first stages now." The favor-seeker couldn't get out of Lincoln's office fast enough. President Lincoln later joked, "That's the way with people. When I can't give them what they want, they're dissatisfied, and say harsh things about me; but when I've something to give to everybody, they scamper off."
• Actor Sheldon Leonard once had a mother's helper who acquired a severe case of head lice. She was too embarrassed to get her prescription filled at a pharmacy, so Mr. Leonard did it for her. He had just handed the prescription to the pharmacist when his co-star, the beautiful actress Hedy Lamarr, walked up behind him. At just that moment, the pharmacist said, "Somebody's got a bad case of lice." Mr. Leonard writes in his autobiography, And the Show Goes On, that Ms. Lamarr avoided him for the rest of the filming of the movie they made together.
• Humor writer Robert Benchley once became ill and summoned a physician, who prescribed a new medication for him, although Mr. Benchley was worried about possible side effects. The next day the physician made a house call (this was a long time ago) and asked Mr. Benchley, who was lying in bed, how he was doing. "Fine," said Mr. Benchley, "but I don't quite know what to make of this - is this all right?" Then Mr. Benchley pulled down his blanket, revealing his thighs, to which he had glued the feathers from one of his pillows.
• While in New York, Russian ballerina Illaria Obidenna Ladré hurt her knee. Unfortunately, neither she nor the other Russians she was traveling with knew much English. They asked around for a doctor who would help Ms. Ladré, but when she went to the doctor's office, he asked her, "Do you have syphilis?" When she replied that she had injured her knee, he told her, "You are in the wrong place." Fortunately, the next doctor Ms. Ladré saw was able to help her.
• Dwight D. Eisenhower and the great Native American football player Jim Thorpe once met. They played each other in a game at West Point in 1912. Mr. Eisenhower tackled Mr. Thorpe, but the tackle injured Mr. Eisenhower's knee and he had to quit playing football.
• A big man was sleeping on the deck of a cruise ship when a small man suddenly felt ill and vomited all over the big man. The big man woke up and discovered that he was covered with vomit. Thinking quickly, the small man asked, "Do you feel better now?"
• While in a hospital, Dorothy Parker wished to be left alone so she could dictate letters to her secretary, so she pressed the button that called the nurses' station, saying, "This should assure us of at least an hour of undisturbed privacy."
• As a youth, actor Robert Morley once visited a madman in a mental hospital who urged him, "Bring me detective stories, and get me out."
• The Buddha once addressed an audience and said that if anyone wanted to serve him, they should serve the sick. Nearly 500 years later, Jesus said very much the same thing.
• An old joke says that psychiatrists think that patients who arrive early for appointments are anxious, patients who arrive late are hostile, and patients who arrive on time are compulsive.
• While on his deathbed, Irish wit John Philpot Curran coughed frequently. When his physician told him that he was coughing with more difficulty, he replied, "That is surprising, since I have been practicing all night."
• "Your health comes first - you can always hang yourself later." - Jewish proverb.
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Netflix & The Oscars
Steven Spielberg
This year's Oscars were a big deal for online streaming service Netflix, which-through a savvy combination of marketing, theatrical maneuvering, and the "Hey, why didn't we think of that?" genius to give Academy darling Alfonso Cuarón money to make whatever sort of movie he might happen to like-scored its first Best Picture nomination, for Cuarón's Roma. Sure, it didn't win, but Cuarón picked up another award for Best Director, and it was still a much more high-profile performance for a studio/network/something that usually has to content itself with nominations and the occasional win over in documentary land. (2017's Best Documentary Short Film award for The White Helmets was the service's first actual win.)
Maybe too high-profile: Whatever simmering Netflix resentments Hollywood's big-name directors have had on the back-burner for the last few years-slipping out in festival introduction speeches or the occasional candid interview about how Netflix's output aren't "real" movies-have now come to a boil, with the big guy himself, Mr. Steven Spielberg, now openly gunning for the service to be excluded from Academy consideration, at least in their current form.
Spielberg has made it clear in the past that he thinks Netflix's films- which run only rarely in theaters, and even then, not with a traditional distribution model-qualify only as "TV movies," fit for Emmy consideration, rather than the Oscars. Netflix's decision to put Roma in theaters for a three-week (and in some places, more) run doesn't appear to have mollified Spielberg, either; per IndieWire, he's expected to speak in favor of rule changes that would exclude films like Cuarón's from consideration at next month's Academy Governor's Board meeting. (He represents the Director's branch for the exclusive body, presumably on the grounds that he's Steven fucking Spielberg.)
Or, to make a pretty complicated paragraph a lot shorter: People are pissed off about money-how much Netflix is spending, and how much it is, or isn't, bringing in. We're willing to buy the idea that Spielberg's motives are more pure-he's a dedicated cinephile, and he's already got more cash than god-with a focus on the idea that there's a fundamental difference between visual media made to show on a theater screen, and that designed to run on a monitor or a phone. (Per an Amblin spokesperson: "Steven feels strongly about the difference between the streaming and theatrical situation.") But it still sounds likely that he'll end up serving as the mouthpiece for a movement fueled in large part by established studios who don't like the way the new kid on the block operates.
Steven Spielberg
1968 Life Magazine
Beatles
An Ohio library says a 1968 copy of Life magazine with the Beatles on the cover has been returned by a borrower who apologized for stealing it as a "kid" and sent $100 to cover late fees.
The Cuyahoga County Public Library says it received the apology this week from someone named Brian, who acknowledged taking it from a suburban Cleveland branch the year it was published.
The library caps late fees at $100, which is good for Brian. The normal fine of 10 cents a day over 50 years would have exceeded $1,800.
Library spokesman Robert Rua says the library is forgiving and thanks Brian for doing the right thing.
The library expects to put the magazine on display.
Beatles
Returning As TV Series
'The Sandlot'
Legends never die, and the legendary neighborhood kids from "The Sandlot" are coming back for a television sequel.
"The Sandlot" director David Mickey Evans announced that the beloved film would be getting a sequel during an episode of the podcast "The Rain Delay." The new show will be available to stream, but Evans did not reveal which streaming service had picked up the show.
Evans also said that the the film's original cast would be coming back for the sequel. The original film followed a group of kids in 1962 who play baseball at a sandlot. It's a classic coming-of-age story within a sports film. At the end of the film, the boys are 30 years older, with two of the characters, Benny and Scotty, becoming a Major League Baseball player and a sportscaster respectively.
There have been two follow-ups to the beloved film. Evans wrote and directed "The Sandlot 2" in 2005, which had a direct-to-video release. Only James Earl Jones returned to reprise his role as Mr. Mertle.
Little is known about the TV show right now, but according to Slashfilm, the show has already been ordered for 2 seasons, and will be set 22 years after the original film's 1962 setting.
'The Sandlot'
1970s Interview
Son Defends Father
John Wayne's son defended his father amid calls to remove the movie icon's name from a California airport after controversial quotes from 1971 resurfaced.
"It would be an injustice to judge someone based on an interview that's being used out of context," Ethan Wayne told CNN's Michael Smerconish on "Smerconish" Saturday. "They're trying to contradict how he lived his life, and how he lived his life was who he was. So, any discussion of removing his name from the airport should include the full picture of the life of John Wayne and not be based on a single outlier interview from half a century ago."
In the Playboy interview, the star made disparaging remarks against black, gay and Native American people. "I believe in white supremacy until the blacks are educated to a point of responsibility," he said. He used an anti-gay slur to describe films he considered "perverted" and said Native Americans "were selfishly trying to keep (the US) for themselves."
Los Angeles Times columnist Michael Hiltzik wrote a column encouraging John Wayne Airport south of Los Angeles be renamed after the interview resurfaced. He told Smerconish that Orange County has changed dramatically since the 1970s.
"The views that he expressed in 1971, I think, were extremist even for 1971. That was not a prehistoric period. ... The civil rights movement was at high tide," Hiltzik said.
Son Defends Father
Compromise Offered
'To Kill a Mockingbird'
The dozens of community and nonprofit theaters across the U.S. forced to abandon productions of "To Kill a Mockingbird" under legal threat were offered an olive branch in the form of Aaron Sorkin's script for the Broadway version.
Scott Rudin, producer of the New York adaptation of Harper Lee's novel, had cited an agreement with Lee's estate in demanding that what he called improperly licensed productions be shut down. Following a backlash in recent days, Rudin said the theater companies could perform the Sorkin play as long as they use his adaptation.
The offer is intended to "ameliorate the hurt caused here," Rudin said in a statement provided Saturday to The Associated Press. "For these theaters, this is the version that can be offered to them, in concert with our agreement with Harper Lee. We hope they will choose to avail themselves of the opportunity."
Rudin, an Oscar-winning film producer ("No Country for Old Men"), had argued that Lee signed over to him exclusive worldwide rights to the title of the novel and that Rudin's current adaptation is the only version allowed to be performed. Lee died in 2016 at age 89.
Rudin's demand forced the scuttling of adaptations in small venues such as the Mugford Street Players in Marblehead, Massachusetts, and the Kavinoky Theatre in Buffalo, New York, as well as in Salt Lake City and a planned United Kingdom and Ireland tour. They had licensed the rights for a different version, written by Christopher Sergel and licensed by the Dramatic Publishing Company, or DPC.
'To Kill a Mockingbird'
Iconic Statues 'Leprosy'
Easter Island
In just 100 years, the emblematic stone sculptures that guard the coastline of Easter Island could be little more than simple rectangular blocks, conservation experts are warning.
The giant heads, carved centuries ago by the island's inhabitants, represent the living ancestors of Easter Island's Polynesian people - the Rapa Nui - and have brought it UNESCO World Heritage Site status.
Dozens of giant "Moai" statues dominate the hillsides surrounding the island's Rano Raraku wetland, but they are facing the threat of what locals describe as a kind of leprosy, white spots that are appearing on their iconic facades.
Caused by lichens, a marriage of fungi and algae, the patches eat away at the sculptures, softening them to a clay-like consistency and deforming their features.
Sonia Haoa, an archaeologist and Easter Island native, is compiling an inventory of its heritage, including the Moai. She estimates that about 70 percent of the more than 1,000 statues are affected by lichens.
Easter Island
Bigger Than a Hot Tub
Hoodwinker Sunfish
A fish so mysterious that scientists named it the "hoodwinker" because it had eluded them for decades has washed ashore in California, thousands of miles from its home in the Southern Hemisphere.
And this isn't just any fish. At 7 feet (2.1 meters) long, this particular hoodwinker sunfish is larger than a four-person hot tub. The species is also the heaviest bony fish in the world.
So, researchers were surprised when they found a dead hoodwinker on Sands Beach in Santa Barbara County on Feb. 19, so far away from the fish's native swimming grounds in southeastern Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and perhaps Chile.
Because the hoodwinker sunfish is so rarely found, it took researchers a few days to identify the creature. In fact, little is known about the beast. Although research on sunfish (fish in the Mola genus) has gone on for decades, scientists formally named the newfound bony fish only in 2017, after a dead one washed ashore near Christchurch, New Zealand, Live Science previously reported.
It's anyone's guess how the newly discovered Mola tecta ended up on a California beach, but it's the first time this giant has been seen in the Northern Hemisphere, said researchers at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Hoodwinker Sunfish
Can Any Animal Survive Without It
Sleep
Some do it hanging upside down. Some do it for a few hours at a time. Some do it buried under a blanket of mud.
Regardless of their preferred mode, bats, elephants, frogs, honeybees, humans and more have something in common: They all sleep.
In fact, scientists have yet to find a truly sleepless creature. But is sleep really necessary for survival?
While total sleeplessness seems dangerous, some creatures can get by with remarkably short bouts of sleep. They could be the key to understanding sleep's function, scientists have said.
Sleep
Cardboard Cutout
'Deranged Person'
Police in Jordan, Minnesota, got a good laugh when a concerned citizen called in to check on a man they believed was standing motionless in the blistering cold just clutching a pillow with no jacket.
They got the call Thursday from a local person who wanted police to help the person they described as a "deranged person standing outside in the cold hugging a pillow," according to CBS News.
When cops arrived the scene, the "deranged person" turned out to be a cardboard cutout of My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell (R-Religiously Insane).
"Those cardboard cutouts sure can look real from a distance and the caller certainly was not wanting to get too close thinking who is this deranged person standing outside in the cold hugging a pillow," they wrote.
'Deranged Person'
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