from Bruce
Anecdotes
Gifts
• In the late 19th century, when the Crown Prince of Germany was engaged to the Princess, they stayed at Balmoral, where they found some white heather while walking. After they were married, the Crown Prince again stayed at Balmoral, where he found some white heather in the same place they had last found it. Knowing how much the Princess liked white heather, the Crown Prince sent it to her.
• Sara, the wife of world-famous tenor Richard Tucker, was proud of her husband. Once, a business associate was trying to come up with a good idea for a gift for Mr. Tucker, so he asked Sara if he should give him calling cards. Sara replied, “What does he need calling cards for? Everybody knows who Richard Tucker is.”
Grandparents
• When comedian Arte Johnson was growing up on a farm in Michigan, everyone canned their own vegetables. One day, his family was boiling the canning jars to sterilize them when someone noticed a mouse in a spill area under the stove. They immediately shouted for Grampa to come and take care of the mouse. Annoyed, he came running from the barn carrying a shotgun, then aimed at the mouse and fired. He missed the mouse, but he did manage to shatter every canning jar on top of the stove. According to Mr. Johnson, “The green beans exploded and were hanging from the ceiling like stalactites for weeks.”
• When Walter Slezak got a job acting in New York, his grandmother sent a note to the captain of the ship that would take him to America. The note said this: “My grandson is sailing on your ship to America. Please keep an eye on him and drive carefully.” The note amused the captain. On one occasion, Mr. Slezak was playing cards at 3:30 a.m., so the captain sent his steward to tell him it was time to go to bed. On another occasion, the seas were rough, so the captain sent Mr. Slezak a note: “I am driving carefully.”
• Ruth Anderson was the council president of the Akron, Ohio, Covenant Community Church. One year, her four-year-old granddaughter visited her all the way from Massachusetts. Ms. Anderson took her granddaughter to church, although her granddaughter’s parents were not regular church-attending people. The granddaughter was impressed by the experience and told her parents, “They have a place they go to here in Ohio. They call it church.”
• Poet Nikki Giovanni, author of “Ego-Tripping,” believes in family, and she also believes in being prepared. She feels that grandmothers ought to know how to bake cookies and other goodies for children, and when she learned that she would soon be a grandmother, she learned how to bake.
Husbands and Wives
• A couple of coincidences saved the lives of married dancers Marian Ladré and Illaria Obidenna Ladré. Because Mrs. Ladré couldn’t get a visa, she stayed behind in Romania while her husband went on tour in South America. Mrs. Ladré couldn’t get a visa because of a mistake made by her mother, who couldn’t speak much Romanian. When the Romanian bureaucrat asked her where her daughter was born, she thought they were asking her where her daughter was staying, and so she answered the question incorrectly. Because of the mistake, the bureaucrat wouldn’t give her daughter a visa. The mistake saved Mrs. Ladré’s life. Later, she started hemorrhaging and needed medical care immediately. If she had been in the jungles of South America, she would not have received the medical care she needed. At the same time Mrs. Ladré fell ill, her husband was on a train in the jungles of Brazil, unable to sleep because of worrying about his wife. The axle under his train car started burning. Because Mr. Ladré was awake, he was able to have the train stopped before an accident occurred.
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© Copyright Bruce D. Bruce; All Rights Reserved
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Presenting
Michael Egan
U.S.A. said:
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION
BANDCAMP MUSIC
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION OF BANDCAMP MUSIC
Music: "Dracula's Theme"
EP: STRIP TRIP TO MIRACLE COVE
Artist: Draculina
Artist Location: St. Petersburg, Russia
Info: “Debut EP by DRACULINA from Saint Petersburg, Russia. Featuring bassist Polina Draculina (previously with Black Lagoons and Messer Chups), who is joined by guitarist Paul Mochalov (Coffin Wheels), drummer Andrew Egorov, and percussionist Larry Mullins (Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, Iggy Pop, The Stooges, The Swans)!”
Recorded at Partizan Records in Saint Petersburg, Russia.
Polina Draculina - bass
Paul Mochalov - guitar
Andrew Egorov - drums
Larry Mullins - percussion, vibraphone
Price: $1 for track; $3 for four-track EP
Genre: Instrumental Surf
Links:
STRIP TRIP TO MIRACLE COVE
Draculina on Bandcamp
Other Links:
David Bruce's Amazon Author Page
David Bruce's Smashwords Page
David Bruce's Blog #1
David Bruce's Blog #2
David Bruce's Blog #3
David Bruce's Apple iBookstore
David Bruce has over 140 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
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Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
Reader Comment
Current Events
Linda >^..^<
We are all only temporarily able bodied.
Thanks, Linda!
that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
I subscribe to my little hometown's weekly newspaper - have for years, and it would show up in the mail on Tuesdays.
Didn't matter if I was living in AK, Placerville, or LB. Always on Tuesday - until this last year.
Now it can be weeks with no paper, then there's 2 or 3 on one day - but they're never sequential.
Two arrived today - one from March and one from last week.
Special Exception
Di$ney
Both houses of Florida's Republican-controlled legislature have passed new legislation banning social media companies from deplatforming political candidates or censoring large journalistic organizations. Gov. Ron DeSantis has expressed support for the bill and is expected to sign it into law.
Tech companies could be fined as much as $250,000 per day if they deplatform a statewide political candidate in the state. Critics argue that the bill is likely to be struck down as unconstitutional. That seems especially likely because the bill is broad and vaguely worded.
But at least one company won't have to worry about the legislation: Disney. A last-minute amendment to the bill provides that it doesn't apply to a "company that owns and operates a theme park or entertainment complex"—like Disney World.
In a Friday interview, Republican state Rep. Blaise Ingoglia, a bill sponsor, said the exemption was passed to make sure that the Disney+ streaming service "isn't caught up in this." The legislation applies to any service with more than 100 million users or at least $100 million in revenue. Disney+ has almost 100 million customers and far more than $100 million in annual revenue.
Di$ney
$35K Payout
Mohanad Elshieky
A comedian who was pulled off a Greyhound bus by border patrol agents has received a $35,000 payout from the US government.
Mohanad Elshieky, who emigrated to the US as a refugee from Libya in 2014, was detained and questioned by officers who accused him of having “fake” paperwork in 2019.
The comedian was traveling from a performance at Washington State University to a show in Portland, Oregon, when the incident took place.
Mr Elshieky, who was granted asylum in 2018, has previously explained that agents “took my documents and interrogated me for around 20 mins then claimed my papers were fake and that I’m ‘illegal.’”
“I’ll never forget the harassment and humiliation by the officers when it was clear I belonged in the United States and on that bus,” Mr Elshieky said in a statement.
Mohanad Elshieky
Virus Prevents Film Festival
Michael Moore
The Traverse City Film Festival is being canceled for the second consecutive year because of the COVID-19 pandemic, president Michael Moore said Friday.
“This is truly upsetting for us and for everyone here who loves the movies and sees this festival as a cultural cornerstone of the community,” said Moore, the Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker who co-founded the event in 2005.
The festival board concluded it would be irresponsible to invite thousands of visitors to the Lake Michigan resort town as the coronavirus continues to ravage the state, Moore said. As of Friday, Michigan had the nation’s highest seven-day infection rate, although numbers have been improving.
“We have simply run out of time waiting for this virus to be contained,” board secretary David Poinsett said, adding that it takes six months to plan and produce the event.
A shortened version of the festival could take place late this year or in early 2022 if the virus situation improves, Moore said.
Michael Moore
Broadband Internet Discount
FCC
Enrollment for $50-per-month broadband subsidies will be available to low-income households and those impacted by the pandemic in May.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has launched a brand new website and revealed a date for US residents with low incomes or those who lost income during the pandemic to sign up for discounted internet services.
A press release issued by the agency confirmed that on May 12, eligible households can enroll in the Emergency Broadband Benefit Program. If approved, participants will receive a monthly discount on the cost of broadband service from an approved provider.
According to the FCC, “Under the law, the Emergency Broadband Benefit Program is open to households that participate in an existing low-income or pandemic relief program offered by a broadband provider; Lifeline subscribers, including those that are on Medicaid or accept SNAP benefits; households with kids receiving free and reduced-price lunch or school breakfast; Pell grant recipients; and those who have lost jobs and seen their income reduced in the last year.”
The Emergency Broadband Benefit Program will provide eligible households with discounts of up to $50 a month for broadband service and up to $75 a month if the home is on Tribal lands. It also will provide a one-time discount of up to $100 on a computer or tablet for eligible households.
FCC
Ideals
‘Anglo-Saxon’
Ahead of a special election on Saturday to replace a Texas congressman who died after contracting Covid-19, former president George W Bush said the ascendancy of supporters of Donald Trump (R-Lock Him Up) suggest Republicans “want to be extinct”.
The special election is in the sixth district, whose Republican representative, Ron Wright, died in February. Twenty-three candidates will compete: all but one of the 11 Republicans are tied to the apron strings of Trump, the former president who still dominates the party.
One candidate, the former wrestler Dan Rodimer, promises to “make America Texas again” and has said “commies in DC are ruining America”.
Trump has endorsed another – Susan Wright, the former congressman’s widow who the former president said on Saturday “will be strong on the border, crime, pro-life, our brave military and vets, and will always protect your second amendment”.
Bush is promoting a new book, a collection of portraits and stories of immigrants. In an interview released on Friday by the Dispatch, an anti-Trump conservative podcast, he was asked about recent moves by pro-Trump extremists to form a congressional caucus promoting “Anglo-Saxon traditions”.
‘Anglo-Saxon’
Proposal
'Divisive'
Dozens of Senate Republicans called on the Biden administration on Friday to withdraw what they say is a "divisive" education proposal that would place greater emphasis on slavery and the contributions of Black Americans in history and civics lessons taught in U.S. schools.
In the latest salvo of a burgeoning culture war over race in America, 39 Republican lawmakers led by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Moscow Mitch) said the proposed Education Department policy would divert established school curricula toward a "politicized and divisive agenda" fixated on the country's flaws.
The lawmakers zeroed in on the proposal's mention of the New York Times' Pulitzer Prize-winning 1619 Project. The initiative, which traces U.S. history from the arrival of the first enslaved Africans in colonial Virginia, was a frequent target for former President Donald Trump, who sought instead to promote "patriotic" education.
Tom Cotton, the Republican senator from Arkansas, introduced legislation last June to prohibit the use of federal funds to teach a curriculum linked to the 1619 Project in schools. Since then, Republican state lawmakers in Iowa, Mississippi and several other states have introduced similar bills proposing schools lose state funding for teaching the curriculum.
The letter released on Friday came two days after Senator Tim Scott, the Senate's sole Black Republican, declared that "America is not a racist country" in the Republican response to President Joe Biden's address to Congress. Scott also defended a new Republican voting law in Georgia that Democrats have denounced as a return to Jim Crow segregation.
'Divisive'
Lawmaker Charged
Oregon
Prosecutors levelled two criminal charges Friday against a Republican member of the Oregon House of Representatives who let far-right rioters into the state Capitol in December.
Rep. Mike Nearman was charged with official misconduct in the first degree and criminal trespass in the second degree. Oregon State Police struggled to force the rioters back out of the Capitol, which was closed to the public, on Dec. 21 as lawmakers met in emergency session to deal with economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic.
Marion County Deputy District Attorney Matthew Kemmy told Nearman’s attorney, Jason Short, in a letter Friday that his client must appear in court on May 11 or face arrest.
Nearman had been seen on security cameras letting violent protesters into the Oregon State Capitol. They attacked authorities with bear spray. Outside the building, some of the protesters assaulted reporters and broke glass doors on the marble sheathed Capitol. The state police investigated the case.
Lawmaker Charged
UFO Fragments
Harry Reid
Former Nevada Senator Harry Reid, once a major leader in the Democratic party before his retirement, has claimed that defense contractor Lockheed Martin may have had fragments of a crashed UFO in its possession.
Reid, age 81, told The New Yorker that he had never actually seen proof of the remnants, but was rebuffed in his efforts to get Pentagon approval to find them. Reid was the longtime Senator from Nevada, the home of military base Area 51, long rumored to house UFOs and possibly even live aliens.
“I was told for decades that Lockheed had some of these retrieved materials,” the Democrat told the media outlet.“And I tried to get, as I recall, a classified approval by the Pentagon to have me go look at the stuff. They would not approve that. I don’t know what all the numbers were, what kind of classification it was, but they would not give that to me.”
Reid was interviewed as part of a New Yorker story on government probes into UFOs.
A government report is expected in June that will further detail what the US government knows about UFOs.
Harry Reid
Ancient Maya Cave
Mexico
Dozens of black and red hand prints cover the walls of a cave in Mexico, believed to be associated with a coming-of-age ritual of the ancient Maya, according to an archeologist who has explored and studied the subterranean cavern.
The 137 prints, mostly made by the hands of children, are more than 1,200 years old, which would date them near the end of the ancient Maya's classical zenith, when major cities across present-day southern Mexico and Central America thrived amid major human achievements in math and art.
The cave is located near the northern tip of Mexico's Yucatan peninsula, where the towering pyramids of urban centers like Uxmal and Chichen Itza still stand, and lies some 33 feet (10 meters) below a large ceiba tree, which the Maya consider sacred.
Archeologist Sergio Grosjean argues that the hand prints were likely made by children as they entered puberty, due to a analysis of their size, with the colors providing a clue to their meaning.
Other Mayan artifacts found in the cave include a carved face and six painted relief sculptures, which date from between 800-1,000 A.D., a time when severe drought struck the region and may have contributed to the classical Maya's sudden abandonment of major cities.
Mexico
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