from Bruce
Anecdotes
Prejudice
• Jewish comedian Lenny Bruce was in a diner on Sunset Boulevard when a tough-looking man got off his motorcycle, walked in, and said, “I’m gonna kill me every Jew in this place.” Mr. Bruce immediately began singing, “When Israel was in Egypt land, let my people go.” He got the worst of the fight, but he amused police officers with his comedy when they arrived to stop the disturbance.
• Morris K. Udall, a Mormon and later a politician from Arizona, ran into bigotry while serving in the Army. An Army Major asked, “Morris? What kind of a name is that?” Later, Mr. Udall received a letter from “Judge Levi Udall,” and immediately the Major thought that he was Jewish, so the Major began to treat him exactly like he treated all of his Jewish officers — badly.
Public Speaking
• In the old days, many people regarded playing cards as irreligious. Susan B. Anthony, a Quaker, gave a speech in which she introduced a Methodist friend of hers, the Reverend Anna Howard Shaw, as her “right bower,” thinking that a right bower was a right-hand man and not knowing that a right bower is a leading card in the game of euchre. The audience laughed, mystifying Ms. Anthony, until the meaning of “right bower” was explained to her later. The next day Ms. Anthony again addressed the audience, and she said, “When I came to your town, I had been warned that you were a very religious lot of people. I wanted to impress upon you that Miss Shaw and I are religious, too. But I admit that when I told you she was my right bower I did not know what a right bower was. I have learned that since last night.” The audience laughed, then Ms. Anthony continued, “It interests me very much, however, to realize that every one of you seemed to know all about a right bower, and that I had to come to your good orthodox town to get that information.”
• Cordell Brown says that having cerebral palsy can be an advantage in public speaking, which he has often done to raise money for Camp Echoing Hills, a camp he founded in Warsaw, Ohio, for adults with handicaps. Because the cerebral palsy affects his speech and coordination, no one can tell when Mr. Brown is nervous. He sometimes used to put his hands in his pockets at the beginning of his fund-raising speech, and then tell the audience, “I’ve got my hands in my pockets to start this presentation because by the end of the evening, I’ll have them in your pockets.” Of course, having cerebral palsy does have disadvantages. Early one Saturday morning, Mr. Brown was at a car wash when a police car pulled in with its lights flashing. Someone had seen Mr. Brown washing his car, noticed that he was uncoordinated (an effect of cerebral palsy), thought he was drunk, and called the police!
• Some politicians change political parties. For example, Reverend W.H. Bill Alexander started out as a Democrat, but he changed his affiliation to Republican. In 1950, he ran against the junior senator from Oklahoma, A.S. Mike Monroney. Senator Monroney’s senior colleague, Bob Kerr, campaigned for him. In a devastating reference to Reverend Alexander, Senator Kerr said, “Now, this fellow Alexander one day said to his congregation, ‘After communion with the Almighty, I have decided to enter the Democratic primaries and run for the Senate.’ Well, soon afterward, Alexander switched over and won the Republican nomination. What I’d like to know is this: If the Lord told Bill Alexander to run as a Democrat, who then told him to run as a Republican?”
Respect
• As a young boy, while in the Potala Palace, the 14th Dalai Lama enjoyed looking at people in the Tibetan capital city, Lhasa, through his telescope. Sometimes he looked at the people in the prison at the base of the hill the palace was situated on. Whenever the prisoners noticed that the Dalai Lama was looking at them through the telescope, they knelt to show him respect.
• When Rumi, the founder of the Sufi order known as the Whirling Dervishes, died, many Jews and Christians showed up at his funeral. The Muslims were surprised that these non-Muslims wanted to attend the funeral of an eminent Muslim saint and sage, but they explained the great respect that they had for Rumi, and so they were allowed to attend his funeral.
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Presenting
Michael Egan
U.S.A. replied:
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION
BANDCAMP MUSIC
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION OF BANDCAMP MUSIC
Music: "Graveyard Shift"
Album: BANANAS PEEL SESSIONS #7
Artist: Big Foot Chester
Recording Company: Bananas Magazine
Artist Location: London, UK
Info: Bananas Magazine has nine of these albums with various artists. All of the albums are free.
Price: FREE DOWNLOAD for 16-track album of various artists
Genre: Punk. Garage Punk. Blues. Various.
Links:
BANANAS PEEL SESSIONS #7
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Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Stephen Suggests
Twofer
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
Quite a party across the street.
Gag Order
NY Times
The U.S. Justice Department under presidents Donald Trump (R-Lock Him Up) and Joe Biden waged "a secret legal battle to obtain the email logs of four New York Times reporters," including a gag order on executives, the newspaper reported on Friday.
The legal battle to gain access to the email logs of four of the journalists started in the last weeks of Trump's presidency and sought to reveal reporters' sources, the Times said.
"While the Trump administration never informed The Times about the effort, the Biden administration continued waging the fight this year, telling a handful of top Times executives about it but imposing a gag order to shield it from public view," the report said, citing Times lawyer David McCraw.
The order prevented executives from disclosing the government's efforts even to the executive editor, Dean Baquet, and other newsroom leaders, it said.
McCraw was quoted as saying the gag order, which he called unprecedented, had been in effect since March 3 but had now been lifted by a federal court.
NY Times
Accuses & Defends
Cable TV
Fox News host Tucker Carlson (R-Trust Fund Baby) has blasted Dr. Anthony Fauci for allegedly lying about his role during the pandemic, accusing him and other health officials of a “cover-up” on certain aspects.
Carlson came out guns blazing on Friday against Fauci, who has claimed in his own media appearances that his emails and public pronouncements have been distorted.
Carlson said their solution was to impose “medical martial law” to dampen questioning. He said that they were worried that their funding of experiments at the Wuhan Institute of Virology would be exposed.
Fauci’s emails were released this week by BuzzFeed and the Washington Post. The emails seemed to take a different stance than what was being said publicly.
Fauci told Maddow that the attacks were “a terrible, not-happy type of a distraction, but it’s all nonsense.”
Cable TV
Blueberry Crop
Maine
Maine’s beloved wild blueberry fields are home to one of the most important fruit crops in New England, and scientists have found they are warming at a faster rate than the rest of the state.
The warming of the blueberry fields could imperil the berries and the farmers who tend to them because the rising temperatures have brought loss of water, according to a group of scientists who are affiliated with the University of Maine.
The scientists analyzed 40 years of data and found that the state experienced a 1.1 degrees Celsius (1.98 degrees Fahrenheit) increase in average temperature, but the blueberry fields of Down East Maine experienced an increase of 1.3 degrees Celsius (2.34 degrees Fahrenheit).
That seemingly small difference is significant because rising temperatures could lead to water deficits that put the blueberries at risk, said Rafa Tasnim, a doctoral candidate in ecology and environmental science at UMaine and the study’s lead author. Lack of water could result in smaller crop sizes and blueberries that are less likely to survive to be harvested.
Maine is home to the only commercial producers of wild blueberries in the U.S. The little berries are smaller and have a slightly different flavor than their cultivated cousins, and the vast majority of the crop is used to supply frozen fruit. Maine growers compete with those in Canada’s eastern provinces, which also produce the fruit.
Maine
Excuse To Shame
Liberty U
Jerry Falwell Jr. is asking a court in Virginia to dismiss a lawsuit Liberty University filed over his headline-grabbing departure last year as leader of the evangelical school his father founded.
Falwell claims in a court filing that much of Liberty’s suit serves only to keep shaming him after a provocative photo of him came to light and revelations surfaced of his wife’s extramarital affair, The News & Advance in Lynchburg reported Thursday.
Falwell claims the suit focuses on his wife’s personal life while not addressing his “actions as the leader of Liberty.”
Falwell’s departure in August came after a news outlet published an interview with a man who said he had a years-long sexual relationship with Becki Falwell and that Jerry Falwell participated in some of the liaisons as a voyeur. Falwell denied the report.
The school filed its suit in April, seeking tens of millions in damages. Liberty claims Falwell crafted a “well-resourced exit strategy” from his role as president and chancellor in the form of a lucrative 2019 employment agreement while withholding damaging information about the personal scandal that exploded into public view the following year.
Liberty U
Swiss Army Knives
AR-15s
A federal judge has struck down California's ban on assault weapons, ruling it unconstitutional and offering a defence of the AR-15 in his ruling which angered family members of those killed by such weapons.
Judge Roger T Benitez, who has favoured gun rights organisations in previous rulings, described the rifle – which has been the go-to gun for many of the nation's deadliest mass shooters – as the pinnacle of home self-defence.
"Like the Swiss Army Knife, the popular AR-15 rifle is a perfect combination of home defence weapon and homeland defence equipment," he wrote in his decision on Friday. "Yet, the State of California makes it a crime to have an AR15 type rifle. Therefore, this Court declares the California statutes to be unconstitutional."
He claimed the AR-15 should be legally protected for its "militia readiness."
California first prohibited assault weapons in 1989, and expanded its definition to include more firearms in later years.
AR-15s
150 Days Later
465 Arrested
More than Only 465 people have been arrested across nearly all 50 states in connection with the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, the Justice Department announced in a statement marking Saturday as 150 days since the insurrection.
A fact sheet released by the DOJ on Friday helps to illustrate what officials have described as likely the largest criminal investigation in DOJ's history, which continues to sweep up more suspects.
And investigators are continuing to search and seek tips on some of the most violent actors from that day. The department says it is still seeking tips to identify more than 250 individuals involved in assaults on officers or other acts of violence. So far, citizens around the country have provided more than 200,000 digital media tips to the FBI to assist in its investigations, according to the DOJ.
Of those charged so far, more than 130 have been charged with assaulting or impeding law enforcement trying to protect the Capitol, including more than 40 charged with using a deadly or dangerous weapon against officers. Nearly everyone who has been arraigned so far has pleaded not guilty, with many of those who illegally entered the building saying they were following Trump’s instructions at the rally to march to the Capitol or didn’t believe they were violating the law because they were following hundreds of others and meeting no resistance from police.
Two -- including a self-proclaimed member of the Oath Keepers militia -- have so far have pleaded guilty, and prosecutors in a growing number of cases have said they are engaged in active plea discussions with defendants.
465 Arrested
Biblical Mouse Plague
Australia
The poisonous bait that is being used to eradicate a huge mouse plague ravaging large parts of Australia is having a deadly effect on native wildlife, experts have warned.
Earlier this week, an image of dozens of Galah Cockatoo birds dead in a cemetery in Parkes, New South Wales, went viral after it was shared on Facebook by Kelly Lacey, a volunteer for the NSW Wildlife Information, Rescue and Education Service (WIRES).
Later during an interview with The Guardian, Lacey said that she found over 100 dead Galahs in the cemetery.
Farmers across the region have felt the brunt of the infestation with reports of mice ravaging crops, destroying farming equipment, and causing electricity blackouts. The state government has called the plague "absolutely unprecedented" and warned that it could cause huge economic damage.
Earlier this month, Adam Marshall, the agriculture minister for New South Wales, announced a $50m support package to help farmers that include the wide-scale use of bromadiolone, a poison described as "napalm" for mice.
Australia
Inner Core Could Be Lopsided
Crystallized Iron
When seismic waves speed through the body of our planet, they appear to travel 3 percent faster when moving vertically from pole to pole, than horizontally from east to west.
New models suggest this is because Earth's solid core is growing faster on one side, deep beneath Indonesia's Banda Sea, and slower on the other side, underneath Brazil.
Once, there was a time when our planet didn't have a solid core. The deepest interior of our planet probably held a mass of molten material for billions of years before liquid iron in the center began to cool and solidify.
This means Earth's very center could be a giant, growing cluster of crystallized iron, and when these crystals align in a certain way, it probably allows seismic waves to travel faster in some directions.
Running models on how this particular alignment might have occurred, researchers have stumbled across an unexpected explanation: Earth's inner core is growing in a lopsided way.
Crystallized Iron
Humans Can Learn
'Echolocate'
With enough training, most humans can learn how to echolocate, using their tongue to make clicking sounds, and interpreting the sounds of the echoes that come back, reflected from the surrounding environment.
In as few as 10 weeks, researchers were able to teach participants how to navigate obstacles and recognize the size and orientation of objects using the rebounding calls of their clicks. The experiment involved 12 participants who'd been diagnosed as legally blind during their childhood, and 14 sighted people.
Echolocation is a skill we usually associate with animals such as bats and whales, but some blind humans also use the echoes of their own sounds to detect obstacles and their outlines. Some use the tapping of a cane or the snapping of their fingers to make the necessary noise, while others use their mouths to make a clicking sound.
Despite how useful this skill can be, very few blind people are currently taught how to do it. Expert echolocators have been trying to spread the word for years now, and this new study suggests a simple training schedule is all that's needed.
Over the course of 20 training sessions, which were about 2 to 3 hours long, researchers found that blind and sighted participants, both old and young, all improved considerably at click-based echolocation.
'Echolocate'
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