Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Marc Dion: The Hand of God (Creators Syndicate)
Notre Dame de Paris will survive, rebuilt in part by the donations of rich people. Rich people have always thrown a little bit of their money at the feet of a Jesus who took the whip to money-changers. That is one of history's great jokes. But the Catholic churches in Europe and America are still mostly empty, the immobile-faced statues wondering where all the young people have gone, a question that sometimes has a terrible answer.
Ted Rall: For Journalists, Self-Censorship Is Credibility Suicide (Creators Syndicate)
What is the job of the news media? To report the news. Everyone agrees on that. But some well-intentioned self-imposed ethical guidelines that members of the news media take for granted are getting in the way of the industry's fundamental mission: telling everything they know to a public whose right to know is sacred. You know journalists have lost their way when they cheer the arrest and potential extradition to the U.S. of WikiLeaks leader Julian Assange. Any of us could be next; we should be circling the wagons. Yet they insist on focusing on such inanities as Assange's personality, his "arrogance," even his cat. Some even approve.
Mark Shields: What Will We, Voters, Be Looking For in Our Next President? (Creators Syndicate)
What will we value in 2020? Nowhere in the 448 pages of the Mueller report do we see Donald J. Trump demonstrating honesty, honor, patriotism or simple human decency. Let me quote South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Trump loyalist: "If you can't admire Joe Biden as a person
You need to do some self-evaluation.
He's THE nicest person I think I've ever met in politics. He is as good a man as God ever created." In 2020, could we actually be ready to nominate and elect a president we can both like and admire?
Lenore Skenazy: The Easter Egg Hunt Fine Print (Creators Syndicate)
On the one hand, Strand said, "I'm glad they put this event on." It brought a lot of families to the campus, which made for a lovely afternoon. But the emphasis on the potential risks of Easter egg-hunting scrambled his brains. "We're in Scandinavia for a chunk of the summer, and our kids just run around at parks," he said. "They're jumping off things, and some of our friends there say we should be grateful for the small accidents, because then we learn from them, and that prevents the big accidents." Yeah, say the lawyers. Tell that to Humpty Dumpty.
Froma Harrop: Change Is Coming to Health Care. Vote Wisely (Creators Syndicate)
It's a solid bet that our health care future won't look quite like the present. Whether the outcome would be good or bad for the average working stiff will depend a great deal on who is president after the 2020 election. If Donald Trump is reelected, we know where health coverage for millions of Americans is probably going. It's going away. For two years, a Republican president, House and Senate all tried to sink the Affordable Care Act. They did manage to punch holes in it, but the thing keeps floating. A reenergized Trump with no voters to face again would undoubtedly redouble his efforts to torpedo the whole law. Per his custom, he's offered zip to replace it.
Froma Harrop: Paris and New York Are United by Urban Horror (Creators Syndicate)
Parisians were spared the worst this week, but like New Yorkers, they've seen that the unthinkable is possible.
Susan Estrich: Polls and Predictions (Creators Syndicate)
If you're expected to win because you were vice president (Biden) or because you went for it before and you finished second (Sanders), you're wounded but not dead. If either Biden or Bernie finishes third, he's pretty much toast. All the attention will go to whoever finished second and did "better than expected." Donald Trump finished second in Iowa in 2016. Jeb Bush was finished.
Susan Estrich: The Republican Rollout of the Mueller Report (Creators Syndicate)
The Republicans won this round, simple as that, not because their positions were fully vindicated but because by the time you could even begin to dig into the details, they no longer mattered. I'm not saying it was right. I'm just saying that, in terms of political strategy, it was done so well that it was almost invisible to the end.
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Michael Egan
took the day off.
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from Bruce
Anecdotes
When she was a child, Tanaquil Le Clercq used to look at the painting Sacred and Profane Loveand wonder which figure represented Sacred Love: the fully clothed figure, or the nude figure? She was told that the nude figure symbolized virtue. Therefore, she was looking forward to dancing the role of Sacred Love in Sir Frederick Ashton's ballet Illuminations-to be relatively unclothed is a blessing to a dancer, as too much costuming interferes with the ability to dance. Unfortunately, Sacred Love wore a lot of costuming in the ballet, whereas Profane Love wore much less costuming. In fact, the ballerina dancing the role of Profane Love wore one ballet slipper instead of two. However, this turned out not to be a blessing, as the ballerina frequently forgot which foot was shod and in going up on pointe with the unshod foot, she bruised all five toenails, resulting in some unballerina-like cursing in the wings.
Opera singer Nellie Melba lived in the infancy of recording. She once tried recording, but as she listened to the screeching, scratchy result, she said to herself, "Never again. Don't tell me I sing like that, or I shall go away and live on a desert island, out of sheer pity for the unfortunate people who have to listen to me." That recording was destroyed. Of course, the process of recording improved, and she later made some recordings with the Victor Talking Machine Company. Also of course, a mishap occasionally occurred. For example, she had just about finished making an excellent recording when she tripped backwards over a chair and said, "D*mn!" Ms. Melba wrote in her autobiography, Melodies and Memories, "That 'd*mn,' when the record was played over, came out with a terrible clarity, making me feel much as a sinner must on the Day of Judgment."
Penn Jillette of Penn and Teller fame uses profanity a lot, but he did not use profanity around his mother and father because it would have made them uncomfortable. His mother read the Playboy and Rolling Stone interviews with him and said, "It's amazing how they have to add all that swearing to how you talk to make it fit in their magazine." He explained to her that he really does talk that way, but that he did not use profanity around her and around his father. She shrugged, and Penn is not sure that she believed him.
Is it possible to know the exact time that you grew up? Yes, and a friend of book reviewer Matt Rudd knows exactly that. He was in a bar in Casablanca, and he started talking to a pretty woman, hoping to captivate her with his long hair, salty language, and fascinating-at least to him-life. The pretty woman was not captivated. She listened to him for a while, and then she told him, "Why are you swearing so much? Is it because you think it makes you sound grown up?" She left, and Mr. Rudd's friend grew up.
In his stand-up act, comedian Drew Carey uses a lot of profanity, but of course on his TV sitcom The Drew Carey Show he could not use nearly as much profanity as he does in his stand-up comedy. In fact, he remembers his first memo from the network censor, who wrote about the script for an episode, "Please note the excessive use of 'hell' and 'd*mn' found on pages 4, 20, 21, 22, 28, 38, 40, and 52, and reduce this number by half."
Mark Twain was a true original. He lived for years in Hartford, Connecticut, whose most learned citizen was J. Hammond Trumbull. Mr. Twain was very impressed by him - because he knew how to use profanity in 27 languages. While Mr. Twain was living in Hartford, he attended a baseball game at which a boy stole his umbrella. Mr. Twain offered two rewards: $5 for the umbrella, and $200 for the boy's corpse.
Max Gaines, the father of William M. Gaines of MAD magazine fame, used to produce comic books on religious and educational themes; however, the creative process of turning a Biblical story into a comic story with only a limited number of picture panels sometimes tempted him to be profane. For example, he once screamed, "I don't give a d*mn how long it took Moses - I want it in two panels!"
Lessons can be learned in strange ways. John Wesley and Samuel Bradburn once witnessed an angry quarrel between two women who used bad language but who used it passionately and well and with their whole being. Mr. Bradburn was disgusted by the language and wanted to leave, but Mr. Wesley told him, "Stayb-band learn how to preach."
One of George Balanchine's dancers was known as "Evil Annie" because she was gifted at swearing. The dancers with whom Ann Crowell Inglish shared a dressing room used to tape holy pictures to her mirror - but they didn't cure her habit of swearing.
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Donates To NC Hurricane Relief
Stephen Colbert
Stephen Colbert has donated more than $400,000 from books sales to North Carolina to help in its recovery from Hurricane Florence.
In a Facebook post Thursday night, Gov. Roy Cooper showed a check for $412,412 from the host of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
The funds come from sales of Colbert's book, "Whose Boat is This Boat?"
"All barbecue jokes aside, a huge thank you to The Late Show with Stephen Colbert for donating a portion of the proceeds from his book to the North Carolina Disaster Relief Fund," Cooper said in the post.
Colbert made a snide remark about North Carolina's barbecue earlier this year while talking about Casey Hathaway, who was missing for two days before being found alive in Craven County.
Stephen Colbert
'Sgt. Pepper' Piano
John Lennon
Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay is now the proud owner of an important piece of music history.
Irsay announced on Saturday morning that he is now the "steward" of John Lennon's piano that was used to compose songs for the Beatles' album "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band."
The piano, which was made in 1872, was up for auction. It's believed that Lennon acquired the piano in 1966 and that it was in both his Kenwood and Tittenhurst Park homes, according to the Indianapolis Star.
The minimum bid for the piano was $575,000, though it was estimated that it would sell for as much as $1.2 million. According to TMZ, Irsay paid $718,750 for the piano.
Irsay is a big collector of music memorabilia, and has purchased guitars used by Bob Dylan, Prince and Jerry Garcia in the past, according to the Indianapolis Star. He has previously purchased Beatles memorabilia, too, including a drumset used by Ringo Starr and Les Paul's Black Beauty guitar.
John Lennon
Hospital News
John Singleton
Writer-director John Singleton has been hospitalized and in the intensive care unit after suffering a stroke on Wednesday, his family said in a statement Saturday.
"On Wednesday, April 17th our beloved son/father, John Singleton, suffered a stroke while at the hospital," the statement read. "John is currently in the ICU and under great medical care. We ask that privacy be given to him and our family at this time and appreciate all of the prayers that have been pouring in from his fans, friends and colleagues."
The two-time Oscar nominee for "Boyz n the Hood" suffered a "mild" stroke after checking into a hospital this week after feeling ill following a trip to Costa Rica, a family member told TMZ.
Singleton, who became the first African American and the youngest person to receive an Oscar nomination for directing for his 1991 debut "Boyz n the Hood," most recently worked as co-creator and director on the FX series "Snowfall."
Following his breakout "Boyz n the Hood," Singleton went on to direct such films as "Poetic Justice" (1993) with Tupac Shakur and Janet Jackson, the 2000 "Shaft" reboot starring Samuel L. Jackson, "2 Fast 2 Furious" (2003) and the 2005 crime thriller "Four Brothers" starring Mark Wahlberg, Tyrese Gibson, Andrι Benjamin and Garrett Hedlund.
John Singleton
Removed From Tinder and Bumble
Zimmerman
Tinder has removed a profile created by George Zimmerman from its platform, after the dating app identified him as using a fake name.
Zimmerman, who killed unarmed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in 2012, was using the dating app under the name "Carter" according to screenshots of the profile captured by Creative Loafing Tampa Bay.
On the profile, Zimmerman, 35, who was found not guilty of second-degree murder in 2013 to international outrage, described himself as a self-employed consultant and said he was looking for "carefree fun!"
In a statement to CNN, a Tinder spokesperson confirmed the profile had been removed: "We take the safety of our users very seriously and acted appropriately once the profile was discovered."
Zimmerman was previously banned from Bumble in December, where he'd written in his profile that he was searching for a "mature and fun woman that's ready to be loved and respected the way she deserves and is able to reciprocate".
Zimmerman
Many, Many Times
Only Joking
When he began his run for president in 2015, as a television personality with a dubious business background (including numerous bankruptcies and defaulted loans) and serious personal baggage (including three wives and several self-described mistresses), Donald Trump (R-Humorless) struggled to be taken seriously. Since emerging as a frontrunner, however, and especially since winning office, he has often faced the opposite problem: getting people to realize when he's joking.
This is a problem because Trump has a habit of saying outrageous, inflammatory and offensive things that he, or his minions, explain away as jokes, or with some variation of "He didn't mean it." This defense was memorably on display when he called the Access Hollywood tape "locker-room talk." The most recent example came by way of the report by special counsel Robert Mueller in a footnote about Trump's written response last November to a question about what Trump meant when he challenged Russian hackers to find emails that had been deleted from Hillary Clinton's email server.
Trump's explanation to special counsel prosecutors was that he "made the ... statement 'in jest and sarcastically, as was apparent to any objective observer.'"
That's plausible, although mainly because Mueller, and media reports over the years, have established that there were multiple lines of communication between the Trump campaign and people in Russia connected to the Kremlin. A serious request from Trump could have been conveyed much more discreetly.
But, as Mueller notes, the Kremlin apparently wasn't in on the joke, because "within five hours of Trump's remark, a Russian intelligence service began targeting email accounts associated with Hillary Clinton for possible hacks."
Only Joking
Festival Postpones Ticket Sale Date
Woodstock 50
The troubled Woodstock 50 festival has run into more difficulties, as multiple sources told Variety late Friday that the April 22 on-sale date for the event has been postponed.
Agents for artists scheduled to perform at the festival - which include Jay-Z, Dead & Company, Chance the Rapper, Miley Cyrus, Imagine Dragons and Halsey - received a notice from festival talent buyer Danny Wimmer Presents that reads, according to Hits Daily Double, "There is currently a hold on the Woodstock 50 on-sale date. We are waiting on an official press statement from Woodstock 50 regarding updated announce, ticket pricing, and overall festival information. We will get this information to you as soon as we receive it."
Two informed sources tell Variety that the postponement is due to a delay in permit clearances for the site - possibly as few as one - and tickets will go on sale once it is issued.
A spokesperson for the festival seemed to dispute reports of trouble in a statement to Variety that reads: "Woodstock is a phenomenon that for fifty years has drawn attention to its principles and also the rumors that can be attached to that attention. Just more rumors."
The news is the latest in a bumpy path for the 50th-anniversary festival, scheduled for August 16-18, the same dates as the original 1969 event. Organizers were unable to lock down the upstate New York site of the original Woodstock, which is now Bethel Woods Center for the Arts, opting instead for the 1,000-acre Watkins Glen International racetrack, some 150 miles northwest (and considerably farther from New York and other major cities, a consideration for a festival that hopes to draw more than 100,000 people). While music festivals have been held at the racetrack before, including two Phish festivals and the 1973 "Summer Jam" (which featured the Band, the Grateful Dead and the Allman Brothers Band and drew a then-record 600,00 people), concerns arose about the accessibility of the site, which is around 20 miles from the nearest interstate highway. Last year Phish's planned Curveball festival was cancelled at the last minute due to tainted water, however that issue was weather-related, stemming from overflow from strong storms in the days before the event.
Woodstock 50
Cornell University
Organic Machines
A new biomaterial built in a Cornell University bioengineering lab uses synthetic DNA to continuously and autonomously organize, assemble, and restructure itself in a process so similar to how biological cells and tissues grow that the researchers are calling "artificial metabolism". However, scientists are not ready to admit that they have created lifelike machinery. Scientists have done everything but outright claim that their metabolizing biomaterial is alive, but research has listed the characteristics of life that the material exhibits-self-assembly, organization, and metabolism.
These human-engineered organic machines are capable of locomotion, consuming resources for energy, growing and decaying, and evolving. Eventually they die. As that may sound very similar to being alive, Dan Luo, professor of biological and environmental engineering in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell, who worked on the research, says otherwise. "We are introducing a brand-new, lifelike material concept powered by its very own artificial metabolism. We are not making something that's alive, but we are creating materials that are much more lifelike than have ever been seen before."
So scientists aren't ready to claim that they have created life, but just how lifelike is this material? According to the research they're on par with biologically complex organisms such as mold: "Here, we report a bottom-up construction of dynamic biomaterials powered by artificial metabolism, representing a combination of irreversible biosynthesis and dissipative assembly processes. An emergent locomotion behavior resembling a slime mold was programmed with this material by using an abstract design model similar to mechanical systems. An emergent racing behavior of two locomotive bodies was achieved by expanding the program. Other applications, including pathogen detection and hybrid nanomaterials, illustrated further potential use of this material. Dynamic biomaterials powered by artificial metabolism could provide a previously unexplored route to realize "artificial" biological systems with regenerating and self-sustaining characteristics."
The Cornell team essentially grew their own robots using a DNA-based bio-material, observed them metabolizing resources for energy, watched as they decayed and grew, and then programmed them to race against each other. We would have made them compete in a karaoke competition, but Cornell's application is also impressive. As unbelievable as it sounds, the team is actually just getting started. Lead author on the team's paper, Shogo Hamada, said that "ultimately, the system may lead to lifelike self-reproducing machines."
This work is still in its infancy, but the implications of organically grown, self-reproducing machines are incredible. And the debate over whether robots can be "alive" will likely have an entire new chapter to discuss soon.
Organic Machines
Old Font Gets Facelift
Helvetica
"The quick brown fox jumps over a lazy dog" is known for utilizing every letter of the alphabet. More than factoid, type face creators use such sentences to display the qualities of their fonts. This type of sentence - known as a panagram - has a new spin on one of the most recognizable fonts: Helvetica.
Monotype, one of the largest font companies in the world, owns Helvetica licensing, a font originating in 1957. After 35 years, Charles Nix, Monotype director, decided the font was due for another upgrade. A video on the company's website promotes the remaking of Helvetica, known as Helvetica Now.
The font is so popular that a local design agency, Helveticka, decided to rename their company using a play on the font's name. CK Anderson, Helveticka creative director, said that when his former partner retired, he saw it as an opportunity to change the name. That's when he realized he could incorporate his initials - CKA - and still have the same phonetics as Helvetica.
Helveticka's clients range from Avista to Davenport Hotel to the Steam Plant, and even though the firm uses Helvetica, it's not necessarily incorporated into their projects. As for Helvetica Now? Anderson said though they haven't purchased the font as of yet, his firm is "all in."
"Without losing the central characteristics of the font, they improved on it," Anderson said. "I think the changes with Helvetica Now are going to make it more classic and more timeless. It's improving on a classic, which is not easy to do."
Helvetica
Created From Snowfall
Electricity
Scientists have developed a first-of-its-kind device that generates electricity from nothing other than the natural phenomenon of snowfall.
Based upon the principles of the triboelectric effect, in which electrical charge is generated after two materials come into contact with one another, the researchers' new technology exploits the fact that snow particles carry a positive electrical charge.
Because of that, snowflakes give up electrons, provided they get a chance to interact with the right, negatively charged substance.
"Snow is already charged, so we thought, why not bring another material with the opposite charge and extract the charge to create electricity?" explains chemist Maher El-Kady from UCLA, and also CTO of a research company called Nanotech Energy.
While nobody's ever leveraged snow quite like this before, other researchers have done similar things with other substances.
Electricity
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