Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Marc Dion: Evangeline Passes (Creators Syndicate)
I had a pickup truck. Her bloodline is not important, though I will say she was a 2001 and white in color. Her name was Evangeline. I'm of French descent, and all my vehicles have French female names. Suzanne. Therese. Suzette.
Ted Rall: Political Cartooning Was Murdered. Here's the Autopsy (Creators Syndicate)
A century ago, newspapers employed more than 2,000 full-time editorial cartoonists. Today, there are fewer than 25. In the United States, political cartooning as we know it is dead. If you draw them for a living and you have any brains, you're working in a different field or looking for an exit.
Froma Harrop: Our Lesbian Soccer Players Make Us Proud (Creators Syndicate)
Five members of the U.S. women's soccer team - plus its coach - have publicly come out as lesbians. The fabulous Megan Rapinoe is the most out there. With her chiseled features and chiseled short haircut, she could pass for the Greek god Mercury. (She needs a helmet with wings.)
Froma Harrop: Biden Remains the Dem to Beat Trump (Creators Syndicate)
During the Thursday debate, Kamala Harris went straight for Joe Biden's jugular over his alleged failures on race matters. The day after, however, Keisha Lance Bottoms, the black mayor of arguably America's blackest city, Atlanta, endorsed Biden for the Democratic nomination. And according to The Daily Beast, a Democracy Corps poll had Biden's favorability with African Americans up by net 18 percent after the debate.
Oliver Burkeman: The wrong side of history has become a crowded place. Time to rethink (The Guardian)
Who among us will be viewed with shame in 50 years' time remains to be seen
Gene Marks: Could this be the worst cafe in the world? (The Guardian)
New Zealand cafe has been dubbed the 'F… Off Shop' by the locals and the owner is called the 'Wicked Witch of Springfield'.
Kaite Welsh: I can't write about a world without rape - because I don't live in one (The Guardian)
Women read and write crime fiction as a way to understand real experience. I was raped - and being told by the Staunch prize that books like mine are preventing justice is outrageous.
Fiona Sturges: Revenge of the She-Punks and A Seat at the Table review - the women who changed music (The Guardian)
Pussy Riot, Patti Smith, Kristin Hersh, Grace Jones ... two books explore the hard-won freedoms and glories of female pop stars, as well as those breaking through.
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Presenting
Michael Egan
took the day off.
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
from Bruce
Anecdotes
• When Jerome K. Jerome (1859-1927) was a young man acting in London, a play he was in was supposed to end spectacularly with a house falling on and killing the villain, while the hero rescued the heroine just in time. Fortunately, the house fell exactly as it was supposed to, the villain was killed exactly as he was supposed to be, and the hero rescued the heroine exactly as he was supposed to. Unfortunately, the curtain had fallen too quickly, and the audience saw none of the spectacle. Afterward, the manager spent considerable time looking for the man who had dropped the curtain too quickly. Perhaps it's just as well that the miscreant had run away, since the manager had a crowbar in his hands.
• Lee Schubert produced the Broadway show Americana, which featured some of Doris Humphrey's dances. Mr. Schubert came to a rehearsal, watched for a while, and then said, "Some of the dances are too long. Why can't they be cut down to the high spots?" Ms. Humphrey replied, "Your contract said these dances are to be intact." Later, at a dress rehearsal, Mr. Schubert again said, "Miss Humphrey, too long!" This time, she replied, "Mr. Schubert, please keep your predatory hands off my dances." Mr. Schubert shouted, "I'll see you never have your dances done on Broadway again." She answered, "That will be just fine with me." Then she added, "Do you know what 'predatory' means?"
• As a young man, William Schwenck Gilbert, who was later to be the librettist of The Pirates of Penzance, liked to give the impression that he was important in the theatrical world. A friend asked him if he could write an order for free seats at a local play, and Mr. Gilbert very happily did so. However, when the friend presented the order at the box office, he was laughed at, and later he demanded an explanation. Mr. Gilbert explained, "You asked me whether I could write you an order for the play. I replied that I could, and I did, but I never said it would be of the least use to you."
• Bert Lahr, who played the Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz, was a worrier. Once he made a huge first-night success on Broadway and everyone knew that the play was a hit. Afterward, some friends came to his dressing room, where they saw him sitting alone with a melancholy look on his face. "What's wrong, Bert? You've got a hit," they said. "This show is going to run for a couple of years." Mr. Lahr replied, "I know - and how am I going to follow it?"
• James J. Davis was Secretary of Labor early in the 20th century. Previous to going into politics, he worked in an opera house, where he appeared in several Shakespearean plays, including Richard III. In the scene in which Richard III says, "A horse, a horse; my kingdom for a horse," Mr. James and the other young actors were battling mightily on stage, with many shouts of "Hey! Hey!" A man from the audience shouted, "Don't order so much hay, boys, until you see whether he gets the horse or not!"
• Ralph Richardson was fastidious concerning the props that appeared on stage with him. In the George Bernard Shaw play You Never Can Tell, he carried a silver tray on which was loaded an afternoon tea, including a plateful of biscuits (or, as Americans would say, cookies) artistically laid out. Once, he said in the wings, "Oh, oh, oh! Celia Bannerman has eaten a biscuit!" His co-actor, Keith Baxter, pointed out that there were plenty of biscuits left. Sir Ralph replied, "But the pattern, old fellow, the pattern! It's gone!"
• Many stories circulate about how Samuel Beckett came up with the title of his play Waiting for Godot. According to one story (which Mr. Beckett never denied), he once came across a crowd of people watching the annual Tour de France bicycle race. When he asked them what they were doing, they answered, "We're waiting for Godot." (Godot was the oldest - and slowest - bicyclist in the race.)
• Actor-manager Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree (1853-1917) was a perfectionist. During a rehearsal of a thunderstorm on stage, a real thunderstorm blew up outside the theater. Sir Herbert listened to the thunder, and then he said that it would not do. On being informed that the thunder was real, he said, "That may satisfy the people outside, but we must do better."
• Lilian Baylis' theatrical company was once invited to perform in the open air at Elsinore. Unfortunately, it rained and rained, and Ms. Baylis, who was always very concerned about her company, went to the door of her hotel, looked out at the rain, and then said indignantly, "This will have to stop."
• Each night, after the end of her hit play Catherine Was Great, Mae West made this famous curtain speech: "I'm glad you like my Catherine. I like her, too. She ruled 30 million people and had 3,000 lovers. I do the best I can in two hours."
• Alan W. Corson of Plymouth Meeting in Pennsylvania was once told by a shocked fellow Quaker that one of their religion had gone to the theater, adding, "I have never been within the doors of a playhouse." Mr. Corson replied, "Neither have I; but, I doubt not, many better have."
• An entry in Samuel Pepys' diary for 28 January 1661: "… to the Theatre … a lady spit backward upon me by mistake, not seeing me; but after seeing her to be a very pretty lady I was not troubled at it at all."
• A reporter once asked Irish playwright Brendan Behan, "What is the message of your play?" Mr. Behan replied, "Message? What do you think I am … a bloody telegram boy?"
•
James M. Barrie created the role of Tinker Bell in Peter Pan after he saw a small child wave his foot at a firefly.
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AI Used To Solve Songwriting Credits
Beatles
The contested origins of The Beatles' hits penned under the writing partnership of Paul McCartney and John Lennon could be put to bed by artificial intelligence (AI) software which can identify each artist's musical influence.
US researchers from Harvard University trained a machine learning algorithm on hundreds of the Fab Four's hits to build a "musical fingerprint" for each songwriter.
It was then asked to assess eight iconic songs, or musical fragments, recorded between 1962 and 1966, where debate rages over who was the major influence.
This includes tracks like "A Hard Day's Night" and "In My Life" which are credited to the "Lennon-McCartney partnership", but are widely believed to be entirely written by one or the other of the pair.
The findings, published in Harvard Data Science Review, allow for each artist's influences on the song to be assessed, and predicts the probability that either McCartney or Lennon were chiefly responsible.
Beatles
Medical News
Stevie Wonder
Legendary R&B singer Stevie Wonder is taking a break from touring to undergo a kidney transplant.
Wonder shared the news Saturday during his set at the British Summer Time Hyde Park music festival in England, explaining that he would still be performing in three more shows before undergoing the procedure in September.
"So what's gonna happen is this: I'm going to have surgery. I'm going to have a kidney transplant in September of this year," Wonder told the crowd. "You aint got to hear no rumors about nothing; I told you what's up - I'm good."
Wonder also confirmed that he already has a donor for the procedure, generating cheers from the crowd.
"I'm all good; I'm all good; I'm all good. I have a donor; it's all good," he said. "I want you to know I came here to give you my love and to thank you for your love."
Stevie Wonder
Arrest In Oregon
Dennis Day
Authorities in Oregon have arrested a man in the death of an original member of Disney's "The Mickey Mouse Club."
Daniel James Burda, 36, was taken into custody Friday on suspicion of manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide, abuse of a corpse, criminal mistreatment and identity theft in the death of Dennis Day, Oregon State Police said.
Burda was being held in Jackson County Jail, where records show he had been booked on June 26 for violating probation on a previous robbery charge.
Oregon State Police Captain Timothy R. Fox said Burda did jobs around the house for Day and his husband. Police declined to provide more details about Burda's connection to Day, though neighbors say Burda had lived with the elderly couple at their home in southern Oregon.
Day, 76, was a founding member of the Mickey Mouse Club for two seasons in the 1950s.
Dennis Day
'Europe's Biggest Sex Festival'
Swingfields
Europe's biggest swingers party gets underway this weekend - in a field in Worcestershire.
The location for the event, called Swingfields, has been revealed using handwritten "SF this way" signs around Malvern.
The site is a closely-guarded secret and ticket holders who pay £170 for couples are only told 48 hours before the festival gets underway.
Drone pictures of the field near the Three Counties Showground - opened by the Queen in 1958 - show a red double-decker party bus and gazebo covering several double-beds.
Other pictures showed four-poster beds dotted around the site as well as mysterious tents and marquees in the corners of the field.
Swingfields
Keeping Children In 'Cages'
$4.5 Million Daily
On Tuesday, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Inspector General (IG) released a blistering report, slamming the Department for substandard conditions where detained children didn't have access to showers, changes of clothes, or hot meals.
The IG called on DHS to "take immediate steps to alleviate dangerous overcrowding and prolonged detention of children and adults in the Rio Grande Valley." But what is it costing taxpayers to detain children in squalor? According to calculations by Yahoo Finance, that figure stands at $4.7 million - per day.
Legally, unaccompanied children (UAC) and children with a parent or legal guardian are to be taken care of by the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), a program that is part of Health and Human Services (HHS). HHS says it has 13,000 children its agency's care. Children are kept in one of two types of facilities: temporary (emergency influx shelters) and permanent. According to HHS, while it costs $256 a day to house children at permanent HHS facilities, the figure balloons at temporary shelters to $775 a night.
HHS tells Yahoo Finance that of the 13,000 children in its care, 2,594 are staying at the two influx shelters at Homestead and Carrizo Springs. For those nearly 2,600 children staying at those two facilities alone, $2 million is spent each night. Detaining children at permanent HHS facilities is far less costly in comparison; taxpayers are spending $2.7 million to house the remaining 10,406 children.
While American taxpayers are currently spending nearly $5 million each day on detaining children at HHS facilities, it pales in comparison to the totality of the border crisis, and what has been spent so far this fiscal year.
$4.5 Million Daily
Washington Observation
'Uniquely Dysfunctional'
Donald Trump's (R-Churl) White House is "uniquely dysfunctional" and "inept", according to leaked memos from the UK's ambassador in Washington.
The documents detail Sir Kim Darroch's judgements on the Trump administration from 2017 to the present, and could prove highly embarrassing for the Foreign Office.
In the diplomatic memos, obtained by the Mail on Sunday, Sir Kim questioned whether the White House "will ever look competent".
In one scathing assessment, he wrote: "We don't really believe this administration is going to become substantially more normal; less dysfunctional; less unpredictable; less faction riven; less diplomatically clumsy and inept."
The top diplomat also suggested that in order to communicate with the US president "you need to make your points simple, even blunt".
'Uniquely Dysfunctional'
Deficit-Hawk Governor
Alaska
Alaska Governor Michael Dunleavy, a Republican, is pushing his alma mater to the financial brink so the state can avoid raising taxes or dipping into the oil industry money it doles out to residents.
Dunleavy, a former teacher and school board member, last week vetoed $130 million for the University of Alaska system, a nearly 41% decline in state funding. The unprecedented cut has left university leadership, faculty, and students scrambling to persuade the Republican-led legislature to override the veto. If they don't, the university warns, it may dismiss as many as 2,000 people, slash programs, shutter campuses and lose students to other states.
Alaska's austerity measures are in stark contrast to other states that have started to increase higher-education funding as the economy keeps expanding. In fact, 41 states proposed more money for colleges and universities for fiscal 2020, according the National Association of State Budget Officers.
"These cuts are alarming and significant," said Robert Anderson, president of the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association, who noted that the university's fiscal year started July 1. "Having to quickly turn around and make plans with these cuts in mind is unparalleled."
It may be one of the biggest yearly pullbacks from public higher education by a state in modern history, according to association data going back to 1980. New Hampshire lowered funding by about 39% in 2012 after the recession, only to boost funding later to make up for the decline. Alaska is an outlier among states that have "back-filled" funding after the economy improved, Anderson said.
Alaska
Ask For Help
Undocumented Workers
Nearly two dozen undocumented immigrants fired from President Don-Old Trump's (R-Grifter) golf clubs are asking him to help them stay in the United States.
Twenty-one former employees, some of whom had worked at Trump's properties for more than a decade, requested a meeting with the president so they could make their case, according to a letter obtained by The Washington Post and published earlier this week .
"We are modest people who represent the dreams of the 11 million undocumented men, women and children who live and work in this country," they wrote. "We love America and want to talk to you about helping to give us a chance to become legal."
Last year, a maid at Trump's club in Bedminster, New Jersey, revealed to The New York Times that she and some of her co-workers were undocumented immigrants. A supervisor who was aware of their status allegedly threatened to use it against those who complained about working conditions.
A Post investigation found in February that Trump's businesses had a long history of employing undocumented workers, despite his populist rhetoric and his efforts as president to crack down on immigration.
Undocumented Workers
Ancient City Designated UNESCO World Heritage Site
Babylon
The ancient city of Babylon, first referenced in a clay tablet from the 23rd century B.C., was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site on Friday, after a vote that followed decades of lobbying by Iraq.
The vote, at a UNESCO World Heritage Committee meeting in Azerbaijan's capital Baku, made the ancient Mesopotamian city on the Euphrates River the sixth world heritage site within the borders of a country known as a cradle of civilization.
Iraqi President Barham Salih said the city, now an archaeological ruin, was returned to its "rightful place" in history after years of neglect by previous leaders.
Babylon, about 85 kilometers (55 miles) south of Baghdad, was once the center of a sprawling empire, renowned for its towers and mudbrick temples. Its hanging gardens were one of the seven ancient wonders of the world, commissioned by King Nebuchadnezzar II.
Visitors can stroll through the remnants of the brick and clay structures which stretch across 10 square kilometers, and see the famed Lion of Babylon statue, as well as large portions of the original Ishtar Gate.
Babylon
In Memory
Joao Gilberto
Joao Gilberto, the legendary Brazilian musician and songwriter who pioneered the lilting, melodious music known as bossa nova, has died, his son Joao Marcelo announced Saturday. The legend was 88.
Gilberto, a small-town boy from Bahia state whose soft voice singing "The Girl From Ipanema" in the 1960s made him world famous, was living alone in a borrowed house in Rio de Janeiro at the end, deeply in debt.
In 1957, he made a name for himself as guitarist on a recording by Elizeth Cardoso, "Cancao do Amor Demais," considered the first bossa nova album.
Later, known both for his smooth voice and his guitar style, Gilberto brought the sounds of bossa nova -- meaning "new trend" or "new wave" -- to jazz festivals and concert halls around the world, putting Brazilian music on the map.
The singer of "Desafinado," "Corcovado" and "Chega de Saudade," -- which he often sang as a duet with his first wife Astrud Gilberto -- was an obsessive perfectionist and then an eccentric recluse.
He is known for living in his pajamas and for reclusiveness, only opening the door of his home to get restaurant deliveries.
For most Brazilians, the last glimpse of the music legend was a video in 2015 where he appeared in his customary pajamas and looking weak, playing "Girl from Ipanema" with his daughter Lulu, aged nine at the time.
Joao Gilberto
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