from Bruce
Anecdotes
Faith
• R’ Shimon Sofer of Cracow was very young when a heretic asked him a question that he could not answer, so he approached his father, the Chasam Sofer, and asked for the answer to the question. The Chasam Sofer did not answer the question right away, but waited a few days, then easily answered the question. When his son asked why he had waited, although he could have answered the question right away, the Chasam Sofer replied, “I wanted to teach you that in questions of faith, one does not have to worry if he does not have an immediate answer. If he doesn’t have an answer today, he will have it tomorrow. Meanwhile, there is no reason to lose faith.”
• Sheikh Abu al-Bistami had several disciples who complained that the Devil had taken away their faith. After hearing this, the Sheikh summoned the Devil and asked if his disciples’ complaint was true. The Devil told him, “I never force anyone to give up their faith because I fear God too much to do that. However, many people foolishly throw away their faith for trivial reasons. Whenever that happens, I take the faith they have thrown away.”
• A young man who doubted the existence of God asked Menachem Mendel, Rabbi of Kotzker, where God really lived. The Rabbi answered, “Wherever He is admitted.”
Family
• Catholic priests may not have biological children of their own, but they do have families. An American, Msgr. Vincent Fecher had been studying in Rome for five years, but then he was assigned to be the priest at a Catholic church in the small town of Uvalde, Texas. He was walking with an Italian friend and discussing his return to America when the Italian friend said, “I guess it’s only natural that you should want to go back to America and be near your family.” Father Vincent said, with conviction, “My family is right here!” Then he continued, more quietly, “Gino, you’re my family. I am closer to all of you here than I am to my own brothers and sisters, some of whom I have not seen in 15 years. Some of whom I hardly know.” Since saying that, Father Vincent has become even more convinced that the “parish is my real family.”
• Dr. Stephen S. Wise was introduced in an African-American church by a minister who said, “I have the honor to introduce you to a man who is conceited to be America’s greatest orator.” When Dr. Wise related this story to his family later, they commented, “How well this minister knows you.”
Food
• Do you know the first drink and food to be drunk and eaten on the moon? According to astronaut Buzz Aldrin, “The very first liquid ever poured on the moon and the first food eaten there, were communion elements.” While Mike Collins orbited the moon, and Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong were on the moon in the Eagle, Mr. Aldrin requested a few minutes of silence from Houston. Mr. Aldrin then opened some plastic packages containing the communion wine and bread and poured the wine into a chalice his church had given to him. After Mr. Aldrin had read the words, “I am the vine — you are the branches. Whoever remains in Me, and I in him, will bear much fruit; for you can do nothing without Me,” he and Mr. Armstrong took communion.
• While the Israelites were wandering in the desert, they decided to ask God to dinner. Their leader, Moses, explained that God is not a physical being and so He does not eat. But when Moses went up on the mountain to talk with God, God said to him that He would accept the Israelites’ dinner invitation. All the next day, the Israelites prepared dinner for God. An old man, poor and hungry, arrived and asked for something to eat, but the Israelites were too busy to give the old man some food. That evening, the Israelites looked for God, but they didn’t see Him. The next morning Moses went up on the mountain and asked God why He had not come for the dinner. God replied, “I did come. If you had fed the old man, you would have fed Me.”
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© Copyright Bruce D. Bruce; All Rights Reserved
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Presenting
Michael Egan
U.S.A. wrote:
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION
BANDCAMP MUSIC
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION OF BANDCAMP MUSIC
Music: "Tan Line Fever"
Album: SPIN THE BOTTLE
Artist: Frankie and the Pool Boys
Artist Location: San Francisco, California
Info:
“Frankie and the Pool Boys - Surf band, party band! Original music in the style of the first wave of Southern California beach music. An emphasis on melody, grooves and fun. Instrumentals only, because who needs a bunch of dumb lyrics?”
Ahem, SPIN THE BOTTLE is mostly instrumentals, with four vocal songs.
Price: $1 (USD) for track; $9.99 (USD) for 20-track album
Genre: Surf. Rock.
Links:
SPIN THE BOTTLE
Frankie and the Pool Boys on Bandcamp
Frankie and the Pool Boys on YouTube
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.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Stephen Suggests
Twofer
Don't Go Back to Work!
New Venture
Michael Egan
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
Last night of sumo until July.
Maneskin Wins
Eurovision
Move over sequins, disco beats and power ballads. A four-piece band of Italian rockers won the Eurovision Song Contest in the early hours of Sunday.
The music festival was cancelled last year amid the global pandemic but the event in Rotterdam’s Ahoy arena with its regime of testing and strict hygiene protocols was seen as a step toward a post-COVID-19 return to live entertainment.
Maneskin’s win was only Italy’s third victory in the immensely popular contest and the first since Toto Cutugno took the honor in 1990.
U.S. rapper Flo Rida didn’t manage to translate his star power into points for tiny San Marino’s entry that was sung by Senhit. They finished with just 50 points.
For lovers of kitsch, German singer Jendrik played a sparkling ukulele and danced with a woman dressed in a giant hand costume optimistically showing the victory sign. He finished close to last.
Eurovision
Cuts Ties With Contributor
CNN
CNN is parting ways with contributor Rick Santorum, the former Republican Senator and presidential candidate who has come under fire in recent days for remarks he made last month about Native American culture.
Speaking to an audience last month at an event organized by Young America’s Foundation, Santorum suggested Native American people had little influence on U.S. culture. “We birthed a nation from nothing. I mean, there was nothing here,” he told a gathering of students. “I mean, yes, we have Native Americans, but candidly, there isn’t much Native American culture in American culture.”
The comments drew criticism from groups like the National Congress of American Indians. Santorum didn’t help matters when he appeared on CNN’s “Cuomo Prime Time” and declined to apologize for the remarks or how they were interpreted, simply telling the anchor they were taken out of context. CNN confirmed a previous report in The Huffington Post revealing that the politician and the network were cutting ties. Santorum was first named a CNN contributor in 2017.
He is the latest in a parade of conservative commentators and analysts to run aground at CNN. Under Jeff Zucker, president of CNN Worldwide, the WarnerMedia-backed news outlet has relied heavily on the use of segments featuring Republicans and supporters of the former Trump administration, who often serve to provide balance for analysis and commentary that strives to play in the center but sometimes tilts left of it.
Santorum has enjoyed a key role with CNN over the last several years. He is often featured as part of a panel of Washington analysts that can include Van Jones and Gloria Borger. Santorum is typically called upon to explain thinking on Republican policy moves and the goings-on of the Trump White House.
Daily Readings
Dante Alighieri
As she has each evening for the last eight months, Giuliana Turati opened her well-worn copy of Dante’s “Divine Comedy” as the last of 13 peels of a church bell reverberated around the tomb of the great Italian poet.
Italy is honoring Dante Alighieri — who died in exile from Florence on Sept. 13, 1321 — in myriad ways on the 700th anniversary of his death. Those include new musical scores and gala concerts, exhibits and dramatic readings against stunning backgrounds in every corner of the country. Pope Francis has written an Apostolic letter, the latest by a pope examining Dante’s relationship with the Roman Catholic Church.
But nowhere is the tribute more intimate than before his tomb, which was restored for the anniversary, as dusk falls each day in the city of Ravenna, a former Byzantine capital.
Turati, a life-long Ravenna resident, comes to listen as volunteer Dante-lovers read a single canton, following along in the copy of the “Divine Comedy” inscribed with the year she studied the poet’s masterwork in school: 1967.
The daily reading, part of a yearlong celebration of Dante that started in September, is intended to connect ordinary people -- residents and tourists, scholars and the uninitiated -- with the “Divine Comedy” as an appreciation by the city he adopted while in exile.
Dante Alighieri
Skyscraper Slide Won't Reopen
Los Angeles
A renovation will do away with a slide that gave thrill-seekers a brief ride on the outside of a downtown Los Angeles skyscraper.
The new owner of the U.S. Bank Tower will remove the Skyslide and Skyspace public observation deck, the Los Angeles Times reported Friday.
The slide and deck opened in 2016 with the idea of making the tower a tourist attraction.
Located nearly 1,000 feet (304.8 meters) above the ground, the Skyslide is a see-through enclosure 45 feet long (13.7 meters) and made of 1.25-inch-thick (3.18 centimeter) glass. Visitors could slide from the 70th floor down to the 69th floor.
Developer Silverstein Properties bought the U.S. Bank Tower last year for $430 million and plans to spend $60 million on upgrades to make it more appealing to businesses in creative fields, the Times reported.
Los Angeles
Footage Seized
Attempted Coup
U.S. authorities have confiscated roughly $90,000 from a Utah man who sold footage of a woman being fatally shot during the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of former President Donald Trump, according to court filings.
Prosecutors also have filed additional criminal charges against the man, John Earle Sullivan, a self-described political activist who is accused of entering the Capitol building and participating in the riot, the filings unsealed on Thursday showed.
Sullivan now faces a total of eight criminal counts, including weapons charges, related to the riot. Sullivan's lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
According to the court filings, Sullivan portrayed himself as an independent journalist who was reporting on the chaos, but actually encouraged other participants to "burn" the building and engage in violence.
Sullivan recorded video of the confrontation between rioters and police just outside the U.S. House of Representatives chamber that included the shooting of protester Ashli Babbitt and, according to court filings, boasted to an unnamed witness that "my footage is worth like a million of dollars, millions of dollars."
Attempted Coup
‘Sedition-Loving Traitor’
Veterans
Angry veterans fired back at Texas Senator Rafael "Ted" Cruz (R-Cancunt) after he retweeted a video juxtaposing a macho recruiting video for the Russian Army and a video of a daughter of two mothers becoming a US Army corporal.
He wrote: “Holy crap. Perhaps a woke, emasculated military is not the best idea....”
Former director for European affairs for the national security council and a lieutenant colonel in the US Army, Alexander Vindman, tweeted: “Because you served in the military so you know, right? The US military is second to none. Please keep it out of your political theater. I hear there are actual problems Congress needs to address. BTW didn’t you swear to support and defend the US Constitution?”
Illinois Senator Tammy Duckworth, who lost both her legs while serving as a helicopter pilot in Iraq, also went after Mr Cruz, mockingly using his opening words: “Holy crap. Perhaps a US Senator shouldn’t suggest that the *Russian* military is better than the American military that protected him from an insurrection he helped foment?”
Veteran and director of communications for Catholics for Choice, Charlotte Clymer, wrote on the platform: “Am I surprised that Ted Cruz is mocking our military as ‘emasculated’? No. This is the coward who wouldn’t even stand beside his own wife when Trump publicly talked shit about her.”
Veterans
Distraction From Election
Conspiracy
Donald Trump (R-Lock Him Up)‘s former national security advisor Michael Flynn (R-Precious Bodily Fluids) has claimed that coronavirus was a conspiracy to distract from last year’s election.
Mr Flynn, a retired General who is one of the most high-profile believers of QAnon conspiracy theories, made the claims in an interview in which he said he had taken hydroxychloroquin “for 30 years.”
“When you look around the world, why do all these place not have the problems that we keep getting beat over the head and shoulders on in this country when it comes to Covid?” said Mr Flynn.
“Why? Because everything, everything, and this is my truth, what I believe, everything is a distraction to what happened on 3 November.
Mr Flynn also took a shot at the women’s movement and criticised feminists for getting vaccinated.
Conspiracy
Virus Cases
Mount Everest
An expert climbing guide said Saturday that a coronavirus outbreak on Mount Everest has infected at least 100 climbers and support staff, giving the first comprehensive estimate amid official Nepalese denials of a COVID-19 cluster on the world’s highest peak.
Lukas Furtenbach of Austria, who last week became the only prominent outfitter to halt his Everest expedition due to virus fears, said one of his foreign guides and six Nepali Sherpa guides have tested positive.
“I think with all the confirmed cases we know now — confirmed from (rescue) pilots, from insurance, from doctors, from expedition leaders — I have the positive tests so we can prove this,” Furtenbach told The Associated Press in Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu.
“We have at least 100 people minimum positive for COVID in base camp, and then the numbers might be something like 150 or 200,” he said.
He said it was obvious there were many cases at the Everest base camp because he could visibly see people were sick, and could hear people coughing in their tents.
Mount Everest
Growing In The North
Zombie Fires
Each winter, as snow blankets Alaska and northern Canada, the wildfires of the summer extinguish, and calm prevails—at least on the surface. Beneath all that white serenity, some of those fires actually continue smoldering underground, chewing through carbon-rich peat, biding their time. When spring arrives and the chilly landscape defrosts, these "overwintering" fires pop up from below—that's why scientists call them zombie fires.
Now, a new analysis in the journal Nature quantifies their extent for the first time, and shows what conditions are most likely to make the fires reanimate. Using satellite data and reports from the ground, researchers developed an algorithm that could detect where over a decade's worth of fires—dozens in total—burned in Alaska and Canada's Northwest Territories, snowed over, and ignited again in the spring. Basically, they correlated burn scars with nearby areas where a new fire ignited later on. (They ruled out cases that could have coincided with a lightning storm, as well as ones close enough to people to have been caused by an accidental ignition.) They calculated that between 2002 and 2018, overwintering fires were responsible for 0.8 percent of the total burned area in these lands. That sounds small, but one year stood out: 2008, when a single zombie fire was actually responsible for charring 38 percent of the total burned area.
That kind of outbreak may be a sign of things to come in a rapidly warming Arctic. While 2008 was a notably bad year, it was no fluke. Instead, it was part of a pattern of conditions in which zombie fires are most likely to arise. "They appear more often after hot summers and large fires," says Earth systems scientist Rebecca Scholten of the research university VU Amsterdam, lead author on the new paper. "And indeed, that is something that we could show has increased over the last 40 years." For example, the particularly active fire years of 2009 and 2015 in Alaska, and 2014 in the Northwest Territories, generated multiple overwintering fires the following spring.
Northern soils are loaded with peat, dead vegetation that's essentially concentrated carbon. When a wildfire burns across an Arctic landscape, it also burns vertically through this soil. Long after the surface fire has exhausted the plant fuel, the peat fire continues to smolder under the dirt, moving deeper down and also marching laterally. In their analysis, Scholten and her colleagues found this is most likely to happen following hotter summers, because that makes vegetation drier, thus igniting more catastrophically. "The more severe it burns, the deeper it can burn into that soil," says VU Amsterdam Earth systems scientist Sander Veraverbeke, co-author on the new paper. "And the deeper it burns, the higher the chances that that fire will hibernate." Even when autumn rain falls or the surface freezes in the winter, water isn't able to penetrate the soil enough to entirely extinguish it.
Then spring arrives and the ice retreats. These hot spots can flare up, seeking more vegetation to burn at the edges of the original burn scar. "Basically, right after the snow melts, we already have dry fuel available," says Scholten.
Zombie Fires
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