from Bruce
Anecdotes
Food
• Comedian Eddie Cantor’s daughter, Marilyn, grew up to become a good cook — and a good wit. Once she had several people over for dinner; as she was carrying the entree to the table, she dropped it, and suddenly the floor was awash with shrimps swimming in chili sauce. The guests fell silent, but Marilyn said, “Don’t just stand there — dig in!”
• Rolf E. Aaseng was once asked by his wife to make some biscuits. He looked in the open cookbook, found that the recipe was for 48 biscuits, so he made 48 biscuits out of the dough. However, his wife had forgotten to tell him that when she made biscuits she halved the recipe. Fortunately, the family dog enjoyed the extra biscuits.
• As pioneers traveled from east to west across North America in covered wagons, often they had very little change in their diets. One pioneer woman with a sense of humor wrote that about the only change in the diet of her and her family consisted of eating bacon and bread instead of bread and bacon.
• Lydia Parker White, a Quaker, was known for her homemade cookies, and her grandchildren frequently asked her for cookies, something that sometimes upset their parents. Once, her granddaughter visited her and after greeting her, said, “Mama told me not to ask thee for cookies today.”
Gays and Lesbians
• When financial writer Andrew Tobias finally came out to his parents, he called his mother on the telephone and told her — many of his gay friends regard this way of coming out as lacking grace. Her first words to him were, “Don’t tell your father — promise me.” After nearly two years, she gave her son permission to tell his father. When he did come out to his father — who wasn’t surprised — he also gave him an autobiography about being gay that he had published under a pseudonym. His father stayed up all night and read The Best Little Boy in the World twice, and he cried because he hadn’t realized that his son was a homosexual and was going through so much pain and so he hadn’t been there for Andrew. Both parents accepted their son’s homosexuality. At a Thanksgiving dinner, his father met Andrew’s significant other, Charles Nolan, and told Andrew that Charles “seems like a very fine young man.” His mother joked that she wishes Andrew’s older, straight brother could have found someone like Charles to settle down with.
• Edythe Eyde watched some new neighbors move in — two men, no women. Her suspicions aroused, she went over and said, “Hi. Welcome. I’m your neighbor across the street. I see you have a couple of cats.” She played with the cats, then said, “You’re gay, aren’t you?” The two men were stunned, but she put them at ease by saying, “Well, so am I! Hi, neighbor!” They became good friends and traded jobs as needed. When the gay men went away on business trips, she took care of their cats, and when she needed a difficult-to-replace light bulb changed, they did it for her.
• When comedian Kate Clinton came out to her family as a lesbian, Bill, her brother, decided to tell his children the news. Over dinner, he told them, and Angela, his eleven-year-old daughter, replied, “Well, duh, Dad. I have only known this my entire life.”
• Lesbian comedian Judy Carter says that a good way to come out to your friends is to ask, “Are you friends with any gay people?” If they say that they aren’t, reply, “Well, you are now.”
Gifts
• Quakers are concerned about social justice and about the just distribution of the good things of this world. Long ago, John Cox, Sr., gave hospitality to people travelling west. One guest took a liking to Mr. Cox’ son and made him a boat. John Cox, Jr., had only one other toy — a wagon. However, Mr. Cox told his son that he had to give away either the boat or the wagon because as long as there was one child in the world who did not have a toy, he didn’t want his son to have two toys.
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Presenting
Michael Egan
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION
BANDCAMP MUSIC
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION OF BANDCAMP MUSIC
Track: "It Don’t Bother Me"
Album: RUMOURS OF LIGHT: A 60 SONG DIGITAL BOXSET IN SUPPORT OF THE DISASTERS EMERGENCY COMMITTEE AND THE PEOPLE OF UKRAINE
Artist: Michael Weiskopf
Artist Location: Florida
Record Company: Aldora Britain Records
Record Company Location: Rothley, UK
Info:
“LOST IN AMERIKA is my fourth LP of mostly original material. In addition to my original work, I am a founding member of The Complete Unknowns, the premier Bob Dylan tribute band. We have been a group for going on 12 years.”
“Aldora Britain Records presents RUMOURS OF LIGHT, a 60-song digital boxset in support of the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) and the people of Ukraine. We feel that it is our duty to use the power of music to help in any way we can. The project features 60 artists from eight different countries and is in aid of the DEC's Ukraine Humanitarian Appeal.”
“All compositions featured here are originals* and have been used by permission of the artist or associated record label. Thank you to all for your kindness and hard work.”
Price: £7.15 (GBP) for 60 tracks by various artists.
“It Don’t Bother Me” is also on Michael Weiskopf’s album LOST IN AMERIKA. Price: $7 (USD) for nine tracks.
Genre: Singer-Songwriter. Various.
Links:
RUMOURS OF LIGHT: A 60 SONG DIGITAL BOXSET IN SUPPORT OF THE DISASTERS EMERGENCY COMMITTEE AND THE PEOPLE OF UKRAINE
LOST IN AMERIKA
Michael Weiskopf on Bandcamp
Michael Weiskopf Official Website
Aldora Britain Records on Bandcamp
Aldora Britain Records on YouTube
Other Links:
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David Bruce's Smashwords Page
David Bruce's Blog #1
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Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
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
Gas was down to $6.15/gal (cash) at the no-name, cash-preferred station.
Deletes Jan. 6 Committee Video
YouTube
YouTube is not kidding around: Even when it’s the Jan. 6 Committee doing the uploading, videos of Donald Trump lying about election fraud are not allowed.
The video hosting giant nixed a clip the committee posted this week because it showed the former President repeating baseless election-fraud claims on the Fox Business Channel, the New York Times reported Friday.
The excerpt included recorded testimony from former Attorney General Bill Barr, but it was Trump saying “We had glitches where they moved thousands of votes from my account to Biden’s account” – and suggestions that federal law enforcement agencies were behind it – that drew the YouTube flag.
The Times said the video was originally covered over with a black box stating the clip violated YouTube’s service terms, and has since been set to “Private.”
“Our election integrity policy prohibits content advancing false claims that widespread fraud, errors or glitches changed the outcome of the 2020 U.S. presidential election, if it does not provide sufficient context,” YouTube spokeswoman Ivy Choi said in a statement to the Times. “We enforce our policies equally for everyone, and have removed the video uploaded by the Jan. 6 committee channel.”
YouTube
Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art
The Cheech
A home for Cheech Marin’s collection of Chicano art has debuted in Southern California.
The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture opened Saturday in Riverside, east of Los Angeles.
Marin rolled up in a blue 1962 Chevy Impala lowrider, hopped out and unlocked the doors for opening day of “The Cheech,” The Press-Enterprise reported.
The center houses hundreds of paintings, photographs, sculptures and other works from Marin’s collection, which the actor and comedian began building in the 1980s.
The center is a public-private partnership between the Marin, the city and the Riverside Art Museum, which will operate it.
The Cheech
Documents Rediscovered
Sojourner Truth
In 1828, years before she took the name Sojourner Truth, a Black woman who had escaped slavery with her infant daughter won a court fight in New York’s Hudson Valley to bring her son, Peter, home from Alabama.
It was a historic case of a Black woman seeking the release of her son from slavery prevailing in court against a white man. Isabella Van Wagenen, as she was known then, would gain enduring fame as an outspoken abolitionist and women’s rights advocate. As for her deposition and the rest of the court documents, they were boxed up and eventually stored among a million other records, unseen and unrecognized for their significance.
Until 194 years later.
An eagle-eyed state archivist searching for something else spotted the court records in January. Now, they will briefly be on public display Wednesday at the Ulster County Courthouse in Kingston, New York, the same building she walked into almost two centuries ago seeking justice. The eight hand-written pages offer new details about a significant turning point in her eventful life.
“This was extremely brave of Isabella,” said Nell Irvin Painter, author of “Sojourner Truth: A Life, A Symbol.” “Just the fact that she was a woman going up against powerful men, that’s extraordinary right there. And then you add in race, and then you add in class. So it’s an amazing story.”
Sojourner Truth
Production Suspended
‘The Chosen One’
Crew members were riding in a van when it crashed and flipped in an accident near filming of the Netflix series The Chosen One.
The accident left two actors dead and six other crew members injured, officials said. The victims were not identified at first. The Baja California Department of Culture said later that Raymundo Garduño Cruz and Juan Francisco González Aguilar died.
The accident happened on a desert road near Mulege on the Baja California Sur peninsula.
The production of the series has been temporarily paused by Redrum, the company running the filming. The accident occurred when the victims were in transit from Santa Rosalía to the local airport on June 16th. The injured cast and crew members are in stable condition.
‘The Chosen One’
Court Rejects Findings
Glyphosate
A federal appeals court on Friday rejected a Trump administration finding that the active ingredient in the weed killer Roundup does not pose a serious health risk and is “not likely” to cause cancer in humans.
The California-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to reexamine its 2020 finding that glyphosate did not pose a health risk for people exposed to it by any means — on farms, yards or roadsides or as residue left on food crops.
Glyphosate is the active ingredient in Roundup, the most widely used herbicide in the world. Pharmaceutical giant Bayer, which acquired the herbicide's original producer Monsanto in 2018, is facing thousands of claims from people who say Roundup exposure caused their cancer.
Roundup will remain available for sale. According to an agency spokesman, EPA officials are reviewing the 54-page ruling “and will decide next steps. The Supreme Court is also considering whether to hear an appeal from Bayer that could shut down thousands of lawsuits on the cancer claims.
Writing for a unanimous three-judge panel, Judge Michelle Friedland said EPA's finding of no risk to human health “was not supported by substantial evidence.'' She also ruled that EPA fell short of its obligations under the Endangered Species Act by inadequately examining glyphosate’s impact on animal species and vegetation.
Glyphosate
Area 51
Bill Clinton
Former President Bill Clinton this week revealed he sent his national security adviser to inspect Area 51 in Nevada for aliens when he served as president.
During an appearance on "The Late Late Show with James Corden" that aired on Thursday, Clinton said he and his former chief of staff, John Podesta — who he said "loved science fiction" — "made every attempt to find out everything about Roswell."
"We also sent people to Area 51 to make sure there were no aliens," he said, to which Corden questioned who went to the once-top secret military base.
"Oh, if I told you that…" Clinton joked, before revealing he sent his national security adviser, Sandy Berger, who died in 2015 from cancer.
Bill Clinton
1,300-Year-Old Ship
France
Archeologists in France have uncovered an "extremely rare" yet fragile shipwreck in France believed to be 1,300 years old.
The French National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research (Inrap) revealed the 12-meter (40-foot) boat to the public Wednesday in Villenave-d'Ornon on the banks of the Garonne in southwest France, according to NBC News.
However, the wreck's beams of oak, chestnut and pine are delicate enough that air could destroy it, having not been in contact with oxygen or light since it sank, per the report.
Excavation leader Laurent Grimber told the outlet that workers "are watering" the partial remains of the wreck "every 30 minutes" as they aim to "limit the degradation of the wood."
On its website, Inrap described the vessel as an "exceptional testimony to the naval architecture of the high Middle Ages," with radiocarbon dates between A.D. 680 and A.D. 720, per NBC News.
France
Between Hunger And Exercise
Molecular Link
It's well established that regular exercise benefits our bodies, not least in protecting against obesity, but scientists are continuing to look more closely at why this happens on a molecular level.
In a new study, scientists put mice on intense treadmill workouts and analyzed how the chemicals in the cells of the animals then began to change over time. They found the appearance of a metabolite called Lac-Phe (N-lactoyl-phenylalanine), synthesized from lactate and phenylalanine.
Phenylalanine is an amino acid that combines to make proteins, and you might be familiar with lactate: It is produced by the body after strenuous exercise.
The study authors think they've found an important biological pathway opened up by exercise, which then has an impact on the rest of the body – specifically in the level of appetite and the amount of food taken in.
Further tests confirmed these results. Researchers gave high doses of Lac-Phe to mice on a high-fat diet, resulting in the mice eating about half as much over the next 12 hours compared to a group of control mice. Meanwhile, the movement and energy expenditure of the animals remained unchanged.
Molecular Link
1708 Shipwreck Found
Colombia
The Colombian army released images of one of the world's most valuable shipwrecks, the location of which was unknown for nearly three centuries.
Spain's San Jose galleon was loaded with a vast cargo of treasure when it was sunk by British navy ships in 1708 during the War of the Spanish Succession.
The ship, a 64-gun galleon with around 600 people on board, is believed to have been carrying at least 200 tons of treasure, including gold coins, silver coins, and emeralds, worth an estimated up to $17 billion at today's prices.
The wreck often called "the holy grail of shipwrecks," was found by Colombian naval officials off the coast of Cartagena in 2015, but its precise location has been kept a secret.
The images revealed many newly discovered treasures, including Chinese ceramics, gold coins, swords, and cannons.
Colombia
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