Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Marc Dion: Sleeping Beauty Overdosed (Creators Syndicate)
But I love them, all of the dead princes and princesses. I love every lost scrap of their prom finery, every dirty, trampled corsage, every ugly tuxedo in gray piped with more gray. They are the illustrations in my prayer book, chemistry's victims gone east to China, out of the cold at last, as handsome and pretty and smart and laughing as they were in the days of The Lost Kingdom. Before Sleeping Beauty fell asleep and no one could wake her up, no one, ever.
Ted Rall: Left, Center and Right, We're All in Denial About Climate Change (Creators Syndicate)
"We're doomed," predicts Mayer Hillman, a senior fellow emeritus at the University of Westminster's Policy Studies Institute. "The outcome is death, and it's the end of most life on the planet because we're so dependent on the burning of fossil fuels. There are no means of reversing the process which is melting the polar ice caps. And very few appear to be prepared to say so." … The bird population in the U.S. has collapsed by 29% - a total of 2.9 billion fewer birds - over the last 50 years. During that same period, we lost half the world's fish. Insects are on the way out, too. "No insects equals no food, (which) equals no people," says Dino Martins, an entomologist at Kenya's Mpala Research Centre.
Froma Harrop: "Help Wanted: Republicans Willing to Defend County" (Creators Syndicate)
What we need is more brave Republican men and women to stand up for their country. We're not talking about Republicans who have decided not to run for reelection but those who are. These would be patriots willing to displease the Trump base for the public good. This really shouldn't be such a hard ask. Our soldiers put their lives on the line to defend this country. It would seem far less a sacrifice to risk reelection for the same cause.
Froma Harrop: Trump's Need to Destroy Meets the Environment (Creators Syndicate)
One word best describes Donald Trump's environmental policy: sick. The president has an obsessive urge to ravage nature just for the heck of it. Exhibit A is his crusade to weaken environmental regulations against the very wishes of those being regulated. Trump seems bent on destruction as an end in itself. He has worked to destroy America's ties with its traditional allies. He's striving to destroy the Affordable Care Act - and, with it, health coverage for millions of Americans. Now it's the environment's turn.
Mark Shields: Time to Look at the Record (Creators Syndicate)
What is, unfortunately, overlooked when we think of Nixon's presidency and his ignominious leaving of it is the remarkable record of enlightened leadership he, a fiercely partisan Republican, wrote - with both houses of Congress controlled by the Democrats throughout - in 1 1/2 White House terms. If one accepts liberalism as the belief that the federal government can be a positive instrument able to promote economic and social justice, then Nixon could well qualify as America's last liberal president. [A long list of liberal achievements follows.]
Susan Estrich: The Republican Response (Creators Syndicate)
In Texas on Thursday, former Republican Sen. Jeff Flake said that at least 35 Republican senators would vote to impeach the president - if they could do so privately. Flake's colleagues, particularly those who are up in 2020, have had precious little to say. The president has put them on a tightrope - again. […]Why shouldn't [Trump] act like he is above the law? His party has allowed him to be. Democrats will proceed. The president, by his actions and reactions, has made that inevitable. This is not "fake news."
Susan Estrich: The President and the Journalist (Creators Syndicate)
Problem is we live in Donald Trump's America, and job numbers notwithstanding, it's become an embarrassment, a shame, a kind of a scourge. Like him. You look at the numbers and his support has fallen below his base.
Lenore Skenazy: Bright Ideas (Creators Syndicate)
"It's... bright." This is about the closest thing to a compliment that the new shutters on my house and the new color of the front door have received.
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Presenting
Michael Egan
said:
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION
BANDCAMP MUSIC
BANDCAMP MUSIC YOU WILL PROBABLY NEVER HEAR ON THE RADIO
Song: "Vegemite Meatballs" on the album PERFECT MENU
Artist: Big Burger
Artist Location: Grafton, New South Wales, Australia
Info: "I was searching for Burger Big, an Athens, Ohio, band on Bandcamp - they're great, so check them out - when I came across Big Burger. This was a happy accident because Big Burger is an Australian band that is also great. I love their straight instrumentals with no vocals. Both bands are great so check both of them out. Favorite track: Vegemite Meatballs." - Bruce
Genre: Mostly Rock Instrumental
Price: $1 (AUS) for the 12-song album / That's roughly 70 cents in US money - the price of a few sips of coffee
If you are OK with paying for it, you can use PAYPAL or CREDIT CARD
Perfect Menu by Big Burger
David Bruce has over 140 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
New Venture
Michael Egan
from Bruce
Anecdotes
• Soprano Lily Pons once was supposed to sing several performances in Mexico City, but she became ill due to the high altitude. Nevertheless, she completed the first performance. The people who had hired her knew that she was ill, and they were afraid that she would leave without performing again, and so they locked her trunks and possessions in the opera house! Ms. Pons' manager took action to get her property back so she could leave. Ms. Pons said, "My manager hid backstage until five o'clock in the morning. When the night watchman was in another part of the house, the manager packed up my things and carried two big trunks down a creaking staircase. He loaded them on a flower cart drawn by a donkey, and hid them in the cellar of a friend's house." As it turned out, her manager did not need to do this. Ms. Pons adjusted to the high altitude and felt much better and so was able to complete the other performances. During World War II, she gave performances to Allied troops. In Italy, she performed very close to the front lines, and some soldiers in the audience had just returned from the fighting - she could hear sounds of combat during her performance. She noticed one soldier sleeping during her concert and worried about her performance, telling herself, "You must be slipping. You can't hold your audience anymore." But then she realized that the soldiers needed their rest. She said, "If music is able to rest these tired men so that they can relax and fall asleep easily, I'm doing what I came across the ocean to do!" After realizing that, she no longer worried if an exhausted soldier fell asleep during her performance.
• British pop star Victor Fox was very good with children. In the late 1960s, he brought together a number of children from different schools to form a large children's choir at a music festival that was not located in London. They sang the English national anthem, but Mr. Fox wanted the children to sing louder, so he asked them, "This is the Queen's song, isn't it?" The children agreed. Then he asked, "Where does the Queen live?" The children replied, "In London." Finally, he asked, "Will the Queen be able to hear this?" The children shouted, "NO!" And then they sang loudly for the queen. (Here's another interesting bit of problem-solving. Dick Katz was a jazz pianist who always stomped a foot while he was playing. This usually was not a problem, but it became a problem when he was recording. To stop the noise of the stomp, he would put a cushion on the floor - unless he was stomping his foot, he couldn't play.)
• Sarah Caldwell produced many operas in and around Boston at many venues, including the Cousens Gymnasium at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts. At the dress rehearsal with famous soprano Beverly Sills, a track meet took place - the orchestra accompanied thundering footsteps! Ms. Sills had a new business card made up: "Beverly Sills, Star of Stage, Screen, and Track." Ms. Caldwell and Ms. Sills worked well together. When Ms. Caldwell telephoned Ms. Sills and asked to act and sing the lead in the opera Lucia di Lammermore, Ms. Sills was so excited that she immediately said, "Yes." But after hanging up the telephone, she remembered something and so she telephoned Ms. Caldwell and said that she couldn't perform in the opera because she was pregnant. Ms. Caldwell asked, "Weren't you pregnant ten minutes ago?" (All worked out well. The costumer let out the costumes, and Ms. Sills performed in the opera.)
• Philippe Rameau helped create the opera Hippolyte et Aricie, which was first performed in Paris in 1733. Audiences loved it; critics did not. Sarah Caldwell wanted to produce the opera in 1966, and she wanted to find the orchestra parts, which she was sure existed in the Paris Opera, a large part of whose music was not catalogued. She and opera company business manager John Cunningham went to the Paris Opera Library, where they were assured that the music they wanted did not exist. Because Ms. Caldwell was sure that the music existed and was there, Mr. Cunningham romanced with wine and flowers a single lady who worked at the library while Ms. Caldwell looked jealous. Mr. Cunningham got access to the stacks in the library (which were normally closed to members of the general public), and soon he found the music that he and Ms. Caldwell wanted.
***
© Copyright Bruce D. Bruce; All Rights Reserved
***
Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION - Bonus
BANDCAMP MUSIC
BANDCAMP MUSIC YOU WILL PROBABLY NEVER HEAR ON THE RADIO
Song: "Fox On The Run"
Artist: Jenny Dee & The Deelinquents
Artist Location: Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Info: "Jenny Dee & The Deelinquents started out playing music that sounded as if it could have been cut in 1964: 'There isn't a music on earth that better suits D'Angora's voice than girl-group-era R&B, with bonus points for writing songs that hold their own next to the classics.' - The Boston Phoenix"
Genre: Pop, Girl Group Sound
Price: $1 (US) for 2 songs, including "Don't Tell Me"
If you are OK with paying for it, you can use PAYPAL or CREDIT CARD
Don't Tell Me b/w Fox On The Run by Jenny Dee & The Deelinquents
David Bruce has over 140 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
Reader Comment
Current Events
Monster of the Month--TCM October!
Oh, joy! TCM's Monster of the Month (October) is Godzilla!
Linda >^..^<
We are all only temporarily able bodied.
Thanks, Linda!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Saw the movie Gojira listed on Comet TV, and recognized that as the original title of Godzilla.
Sumbitch - it really was Gojira - in Japanese, with English subtitles, and best of all, no Raymond Burr.
No insipid diaglog, no jerky editing. Just a lovely, tight, well-acted, and beautifully filmed gem chock full of subtext.
If you ever get the chance to see it in Japanese, sans Burr, I highly recommend it.
His Hopes
Robert De Niro
Robert De Niro has never been shy about his feelings about Don-Old Trump (R-Cheap Veneers).
He's called him a "white supremacist", a "wannabe gangster" and openly talked about punching him in the face. It comes as little surprise then, that he's now weighing in on the latest controversy around America's 45th president - and he's clear on what he thinks should happen.
"I hope he gets impeached, it has to be followed through," the veteran actor, told Variety this week, adding "He's such a lowlife… He taints everybody around him."
"I said right after he was elected. Give him a chance. I give everybody the benefit of the doubt. This guy has proven himself to be a total loser."
De Niro finished by saying, "It's disgraceful with this guy. He has no centre, no ethics, no morals. He's amoral, immoral."
Robert De Niro
Swedish Death Metal
Greta Thunberg
Teenage climate change activist Greta Thunberg is already a force to be reckoned with. But pair her most recent speech up with some vocal distortion over Swedish death metal and she's downright terrifying.
YouTuber John Mollusk took it upon himself to create this masterpiece, and honestly Greta should heavily consider incorporating more heavy metal into her speeches. It really makes the urgency of climate change action hit home.
"How dare you," Greta screams with enough distortion to make the masses mosh.
This appears to Mollusk's first attempt at turning heartfelt speeches into metal growls, but we hope there'll be more to come. We're going to headbang our way to immediate and decisive policy change.
Greta Thunberg
Greta Thunberg sings Swedish Death Metal
Lesson in Punctuation
Merriam-Webster
The Merriam-Webster's Dictionary Twitter account is well-versed in shade.
On Friday, Merriam-Webster seemingly mocked President Don-Old Trump (R-Feckless) on Twitter after he incorrectly referred to an apostrophe as a hyphen in a tweet aimed at California congressman and House Intelligence Committee Chairman, Adam Schiff.
"For those looking up punctuation early on a Friday morning: A hyphen is a mark - used to divide or to compound words. An apostrophe is a mark ' used to indicate the omission of letters or figures," the Merriam-Webster tweet read.
Trump took to Twitter earlier in the day to argue that the media, namely CNN, had removed an apostrophe - Trump called it a hyphen - from a phrase he used: "Corrupt Congressman Liddle' Adam Schiff." He added that CNN did this to purposefully say that he misspelled the word "little."
Trump's tweet read: "To show you how dishonest the LameStream Media is, I used the word Liddle', not Liddle, in discribing [sic] Corrupt Congressman Liddle' Adam Schiff. Low ratings @CNN purposely took the hyphen out and said I spelled the word little wrong. A small but never ending situation with CNN!"
Merriam-Webster
Backlash Continues
BBC
The backlash against the BBC over its treatment of presenter Naga Munchetty is continuing to grow, with Sir Lenny Henry, Gina Yashere and Adrian Lester among the latest to join in criticism of the corporation.
In an open letter to the Guardian, the group of "people of colour who work in the media and broadcasting in the UK" said the BBC position was "deeply flawed, illegal and contrary to the spirit and purpose of public broadcasting".
The move comes after the BBC upheld a complaint against Munchetty, who said in a BBC Breakfast broadcast on July 17 that Donald Trump's call for a group of female Democrats to "go back" to their own countries was "embedded in racism".
The organisation upheld a complaint, in part, about the on-air conversation between Munchetty and fellow presenter Dan Walker, saying she had crossed the line with her comments about Mr Trump.
BBC figures have also aired their views, including BBC Five Live presenter Nihal Arthanayake who tweeted: "So my understanding of the BBC ruling is that if a public figure called me a 'Paki' I could tell you that what they had said was racist but I couldn't say that aforementioned public figure was a racist. I'm glad we cleared that up."
BBC
Hosts Hurling Insults
Inquiry Incites Infighting
Fox "News" personalities are facing heckles, insults and criticism for their coverage this week of President Don-Old Trump (R-Doll Hands) and the impeachment inquiry. And that's just from their own colleagues.
In an unusual airing of intramural grievances, Fox News anchors and pundits have let loose at one another in full public view - lobbing attacks across time slots and offering a rare glimpse into tensions behind the scenes at the top-rated cable news network.
In one striking exchange, a guest on Tucker Carlson's prime-time show Tuesday dismissed Andrew Napolitano, the veteran Fox News legal analyst, as a "fool" for saying Trump's urging of a favor from the Ukrainian prime minister constituted a crime.
Shepard Smith, the network's chief news anchor, fired back the next afternoon, declaring it "repugnant" that a guest would insult a Fox News colleague - and adding, pointedly, that the remark had gone "unchallenged" by Carlson.
On Friday, Chris Wallace, the "Fox News Sunday" anchor, observed that the spin from Trump's defenders "is not surprising, but it is astonishing, and I think deeply misleading."
Inquiry Incites Infighting
Through The Looking Glass
DOJ
The Justice Department on Friday issued a statement of interest in support of the Archdiocese of Indianapolis in its ongoing dispute with a former Catholic school teacher who alleges he was wrongfully terminated because he was in a same-sex marriage. The United States has a "substantial interest in religious liberty," the Justice Department says.
Joshua Payne-Elliott is suing the archdiocese, alleging that it illegally interfered with his contractual and employment relationship with Cathedral High School, causing Cathedral to terminate him.
But in its statement, the DOJ said that the First Amendment protects the right of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Indianapolis to interpret and apply Catholic doctrine.
It was not immediately clear how binding the DOJ's statement is, or what impact it will have on Payne-Elliott's suit.
"If the First Amendment's Religion Clauses stand for anything, it is that secular courts cannot entangle themselves in questions of religious law," United States Attorney Josh Minkler said.
DOJ
Hidden
Transcripts
The White House acted to hide not only transcripts of President Don-Old Trump (R-Aderall)'s call with Ukraine's president but also with Russian president Vladimir Putin and members of the Saudi Royal family on a highly classified computer system reserved for the country's most sensitive information, according to reporting from CNN and the New York Times on Friday.
The Trump Administration has taken extraordinary steps to restrict access to the president's conversations with certain world leaders after embarrassing information from phone calls with leaders in Mexico and Australia was leaked at the beginning of his presidency. Those measures were restricted even further when details leaked from Trump's conversation with Russian foreign minister Sergey V. Lavrov and then-Russian ambassador to the US, Sergey I. Kislyak.
In the case of calls with the Saudis, including with King Salman, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Prince Khalid bin Salman-who was Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the US at the time-the administration set limits on who could listen in ahead of time. The crown prince was implicated by the CIA in the killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Former CIA Director John Brennan said on MSNBC's All In with Chris Hayes that, according to the whistleblower report, the call with the Ukraine president "was moved to the directorate of national intelligence programs."
Brennan added, "That's not just a classified system, not just a secret codeword system, that is an area where you keep the most sensitive, the absolutely most sensitive information that the US government has, including our covert action programs. It's a standalone system. It's a way to ensure that there's going to be highly, highly restricted access to that. It's not connected to the rest of the White House complex. It is an enclave. And if it was moved into that, and it was not classified, it clearly was being done for another purpose, which was to try to prevent it from being discovered or seen by other individuals. So, I think that is a very, very worrisome development."
Transcripts
Lawyers Or Consiglieres
Blurred Lines
As Washington plunges into impeachment, Attorney General William Barr (R-Crooked) finds himself engulfed in the political firestorm, facing questions about his role in President Dona-Old Trump (R-Crooked)'s outreach to Ukraine and the administration's attempts to keep a whistleblower complaint from Congress.
Trump repeatedly told Ukraine's president in a telephone call that Barr and Trump personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani (R-Co-Opted) could help investigate Trump's Democratic rival Joe Biden, according to a rough transcript of that summertime conversation. Justice Department officials insist Barr was unaware of Trump's comments at the time of the July 25 call.
When Barr did learn of that call a few weeks later, he was "surprised and angry" to discover he had been lumped in with Giuliani, a person familiar with Barr's thinking told The Associated Press. This person was not authorized to speak about the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Giuliani, a former New York City mayor, often appears in rambling television interviews as a vocal defender of the president. Giuliani represents Trump's personal interests and holds no position in the U.S. government, raising questions about why he would be conducting outreach to Ukrainian officials.
Barr is the nation's top law enforcement officer and leads a Cabinet department that traditionally has a modicum of independence from the White House.
Blurred Lines
Worms With Three Sexes
Mono Lake
Mono Lake in California contains super salty, arsenic-laced water and very few signs of life. Now, researchers have found eight worm species that thrive in the extreme ecosystem - and one of those species has three sexes, according to a new study.
Mono Lake lies in the eastern Sierra Mountains and serves as habitat for brine shrimp, diving flies, bacteria and algae, but nothing else - or so scientists thought. Biologist Paul Sternberg and his colleagues at the California Institute of Technology thought that microscopic worms called nematodes might lurk in Mono Lake, partially because the wriggling creatures are considered the most abundant animals on the planet, the researchers said in a statement.
Sure enough, during expeditions to the lake, the team found microscopic worms that can withstand 500 times more arsenic exposure than a human can, according to the study, published Thursday (Sept. 26) in the journal Current Biology.
The researchers visited Mono Lake in the summers of 2016 and 2017, scooping soil samples from dry patches around the body of water, in the tidal zone and within the lake itself. (Limited exposure to the salty, alkaline water is safe for humans, study co-author James Lee, now a postdoc at The Rockefeller University in New York, told The Scientist.) The team unearthed eight nematodes that had a variety of mouth shapes. The distinct mouth on each worm may allow the creature to munch on its preferred diet. Some of the nematodes graze on microbes like cows do on grass, while others prey on animals. Other worms are parasites and leach nutrients from their chosen host.
The research team cultured one worm species from an evolutionary group called Auanema in the lab and found that the creatures display three distinct sexes and carry developing offspring inside their bodies, according to the university's announcement. A look at the worm's genetic code revealed a mutation in a gene called dbt-1, which helps break down the amino acids that make up proteins. The authors suggested that this genetic tweak may be partly responsible for the animal's amazing arsenic tolerance.
Mono Lake
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