Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Garrison Keillor: Too much information, baby, I love you
Stormy Daniels is going to tell her story and if it is true that she whispered in her lover's ear to meet with Kim Jong-un and talk about denuclearization and if steel tariffs were also part of the discussion, it'll be news for a week and then something else will come along and she will be forgotten.
Marc Dion: Revolution on My Street (Creators Syndicate)
I live in New England, and there was a snowstorm this week. We got 18 inches of snow, and most of us hope that's it for the year. During the storm before that, we got 17 inches, and the people on my street didn't think the city did a very good job of plowing. It seemed like it took them an awfully long time to get the street down to bare pavement.
Suzanne Moore: Let's see menopausal women on screen - in all their glory (The Guardian)
The absence of the menopause in popular culture shows that it remains taboo - and women pay the price
Helaine Olen: The students walking out over guns are putting us all to shame (Washington Post)
A huge number of students across the United States left their classes Wednesday morning to remember the victims of last month's Florida shooting and to show their support for gun-control legislation. As Joe Heim and Marissa Lang put it in The Post today, the National Student Walkout is "unprecedented in recent American history."
Kristi Harrison: 4 Ways You're Getting Teenagers Totally Wrong (Cracked)
The recent school shooting in Parkland, Florida is already unique in one regard: For weeks afterward, it actually kept the gun debate going. This is entirely due to the Parkland kids, the fiercely articulate teenage survivors who got in front of cameras and demanded change. The undercurrent of the coverage, though, is that this part is surprising. Who knew kids could form thoughts and express them? It's as if we can't conceive of anyone between the ages of 13 and 19 accomplishing much beyond eating Tide Pods and sexting each other.
Alison Flood: Terry Goodkind, warrior against sexism? That's what I call fantasy (The Guardian)
The author has publicly objected to the portrayal of female characters on his new novel's cover art - which leaves me wanting to object right back.
Alison Flood: "'Women are having different fantasies': romantic fiction in the age of Trump" (The Guardian)
In early November 2016, Sarah MacLean was 275 pages into writing her latest historical romance novel, The Day of the Duchess. She had hit all the right buttons - a titled (and entitled) duke; a beautiful, estranged wife touched by scandal; and an insurmountable challenge the pair had to mount before they could, well, mount each other. And then Donald Trump was elected. And MacLean couldn't bear her hero any more.
Lucy Mangan: "Why we need to stop using rape as a lazy plot twist" (Stylist)
Stylist's Lucy Mangan explains the problem with constantly depicting violence against women.
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David Bruce has over 80 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
Presenting
Michael Egan
took the day off.
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Reader Comment
Current Events
Linda >^..^<
We are all only temporarily able bodied.
Thanks, Linda!
Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
from Marc Perkel
Marc's Guide to Curing Cancer
So far so good on beating cancer for now. I'm doing fine. At the end of the month I'll be 16 months into an 8 month mean lifespan. And yesterday I went on a 7 mile hike and managed to keep up with the hiking group I was with. So, doing something right.
Still waiting for future test results and should see things headed in the right direction. I can say that it's not likely that anything dire happens in the short term so that means that I should have time to make several more attempts at this. So even if it doesn't work the first time there are a lot of variations to try. So if there's bad news it will help me pick the next radiation target.
I have written a "how to" guide for oncologists to perform the treatment that I got. I'm convinced that I'm definitely onto something and whether it works for me or not isn't the definitive test. I know if other people tried this that it would work for some of them, and if they improve it that it will work for a lot of them.
The guide is quite detailed and any doctor reading this can understand the procedure at every level. I also go into detail as to how it works, how I figured it out, and variations and improvements that could be tried to enhance it. I also introduce new ways to look at the problem. There is a lot of room for improvement and I think that doctors reading it will see what I'm talking about and want to build on it. And it's written so that if you're not a doctor you can still follow it. It also has a personal story revealing that I'm the class clown of cancer support group. I give great interviews and I look pretty hot in a lab coat.
So, feel free to read this and see what I'm talking about. But if any of you want to help then pass this around to both doctors and cancer patients. I need some media coverage. I'm looking for as many eyeballs as possible to read these ideas. Even if this isn't the solution, it's definitely on the right track. After all, I did hike 7 miles yesterday. And this hiking group wasn't moving slow. So if this isn't working then, why am I still here?
I also see curing cancer as more of an engineering problem that a medical problem. So if you are good at solving problems and most of what you know about medicine was watching the Dr. House MD TV show, then you're at the level I was at when I started. So anyone can jump in and be part of the solution.
Here is a link to my guide: Oncologists Guide to Curing Cancer using Abscopal Effect
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
THE SHIT JUST GOT CLOSER TO THE FAN!
A CRACK IN THE DAM OF LIES.
HAPPINESS IS A WARM GUN.
THE CENTER CANNOT HOLD...
"JESUS FREAKS" TRY TO TAKE OVER THE GOVERNMENT!
THE TRUMP PARADIGM OF DECEIT.
BLOWBACK.
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
More rain.
Creates Mural In New York
Banksy
British artist Banksy has unveiled a mural in New York highlighting the case of a Turkish artist who was jailed for nearly three years over a painting.
Zehra Dogan was reportedly imprisoned last year for her painting of a brutally damaged Turkish city.
Banksy's protest shows the image projected above a mural of black tally marks which resemble jail bars and represent the time she has spent in prison.
A painting of her face is seen peering from behind one set of bars.
The New York Times reported that the mural was 70ft long, made in collaboration with graffiti artist Borf and was unveiled on Thursday.
Banksy
Civil War Gold
Dents Run, PA
A 155-year-old legend about buried federal gold in Elk County appears to have caught the attention of the FBI.
Dozens of FBI agents, along with Pennsylvania state officials and members of a treasure-hunting group, trekked this week to a remote site where local lore has it that a Civil War gold shipment was lost or hidden during the 1863 Battle of Gettysburg.
The treasure-hunting group Finders Keepers has long insisted it found the gold buried in a state forest at Dents Run, about 135 miles (217 kilometers) northeast of Pittsburgh, but said the state wouldn't allow it to dig.
The FBI has refused to say why it was at the site Tuesday, revealing only that it was conducting court-authorized law enforcement activity. Finders Keepers owner Dennis Parada said Friday he's under FBI orders not to talk.
Depending on who's doing the telling, the shipment had either 26 gold bars or 52 bars, each weighing 50 pounds (23 kilograms), meaning it would be worth about $27 million then, or about $55 million today.
Dents Run, PA
This story of the missing Civil War gold was one my grandfather's favorite bits of local lore.
He also claimed that a particular apple tree (or its offspring) up in Glen Hazel had been planted by Johnny Appleseed.
And that the Brooklyn Bridge was built with Elk County quarried rock.
Correction
ProPublica
The news organization ProPublica issued a detailed correction of a story about Gina Haspel, President Donald Trump's choice for the next CIA director, and the waterboarding of a detainee the year after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
It wasn't alone: Other organizations, including The Associated Press, have issued their own corrections this week, illustrating the murkiness of reporting on the behavior of official actions by public servants whose work, by its very nature, remains in the shadows.
The retraction and apology on Thursday by ProPublica, an organization of independent investigative journalists founded in 2007, was unusual in the amount of detail it offered about its reporting process. ProPublica concluded it was wrong last year in reporting that Gina Haspel was chief of a secret CIA "black site" in Thailand where suspected al-Qaida detainee Abu Zubaydah was interrogated with waterboarding, a measure that some regard as torture. That claim became relevant again this week with Trump's proposed promotion of the longtime CIA official.
ProPublica also apologized for incorrectly saying that Haspel mocked Zubaydah's suffering. The organization said it is now clear that Haspel was not in charge of the base until after Zubaydah's interrogation was finished.
ProPublica said it was told by three former government officials, when Haspel became the No. 2 person at the CIA last year, that she had been head of the Thailand base at the time of Zubaydah's waterboarding. The New York Times also reported that same detail last year.
ProPublica
Just A Goofy Ad
'Bowling Ball Test'
President-for-now Donald Trump (R-Delusional) had people scratching their heads when he referred - with obvious annoyance - to an unpassable "bowling ball test" that Japan uses to justify excluding American cars from the market.
Trump insisted to donors in Missouri on Wednesday that a U.S. automaker had spent a "fortune" building a super car to beat Japanese regulatory tests - but was pounded in the "bowling ball test," according to an audiotape of his talk obtained by NBC News and The Washington Post.
The test, he said, involves dropping a bowling ball "from 20 feet up in the air" onto the hood of a car. "If the hood dents, then the car doesn't qualify," he said. "Well, guess what, the roof dented a little bit, and they said, nope, this car doesn't qualify."
There is no such regulatory test. The best guess on what Trump was talking about?
The Post speculated it was likely linked to a goofy Nissan ad showing bowling balls bouncing wildly down a street. The balls smash several parked cars. Only a Nissan cruises by unscathed ... "urban proof."
'Bowling Ball Test'
Cambridge Analytica
Facebook
Cambridge Analytica, a company that profiled voters for Donald Trump's campaign, allegedly harvested private information from more than 50 million Facebook profiles, which they used to influence and wage a "culture war" during the 2016 election.
Whistleblower Christopher Wylie, who helped found Cambridge Analytica and served as their director of research until 2014, told NBC News' U.K. partner ITN Channel 4 News that the company helped develop an application on Facebook that paid individuals to take a survey. If users had not adjusted their privacy settings on the social media outlet, however, the app didn't just capture the survey responses - it also gathered as much data from each account as possible.
That data included information from Facebook users' friends and contacts, as well.
"So by you filling out my survey I capture 300 records on average right," Wylie told ITN Channel 4 News. "And so that means that, all of a sudden, I only need to engage 50,000, 70,000, 100,000 people to get a really big data set really quickly, and it's scaled really quickly. We were able to get upwards of 50 million plus Facebook records in the span of a couple of months."
According to Wylie, the project was of particular importance to Steve Bannon, who later served as the chief executive of Trump's campaign. He added that the former head of the right-wing media organization Breitbart wanted to use the data netted by Cambridge Analytica to influence and galvanize the views of the American public.
Facebook
Makes Dead Dog Joke
Mike Huckabee
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R-Deplorable) loves a good joke. Too bad he has never told one.
On Saturday, Huckabee tweeted his delight at the news that Andrew McCabe, former deputy director of the FBI and 21-year veteran of the agency, had been fired the night before. McCabe would have been able to retire Sunday.
"Breaking Wind from CNN!" he wrote. "Andy McCabe offered deal for lying to FBI and won't get pension but will get passage in overhead bin on United flight to Oakland to work for scofflaw mayor."
Huckabee was referring to a dog that died this week after it was put in the overhead bin of a United Airlines flight. David Huckabee, the former governor's son, killed a dog while working as a counselor at a Boy Scouts camp in 1998. Funny stuff, right?
Mike Huckabee
False Voter Fraud Stories
Pennsylvania
A Pennsylvania official said no "legitimate claims or complaints" of voter fraud have come up since Tuesday's closely contested U.S. House race in the state, countering several false stories that cited invalid votes and a court decision throwing the election results out.
The website Daily World Update said in a story circulating on social media that a judge identified as Marshawn Little of the 45th Federal Appeals Court of Westmoreland County cancelled the results because they were "tainted beyond reproach."
But there is no such judge in Pennsylvania and no such court exists.
Another story on the same website, which identifies itself as a satire site to users who click the "About" section, claims "trucks full of illegals" cast votes in the election.
No county elections office in the district has received any such reports, either.
Pennsylvania
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