Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Marc Dion: White Privilege Fails Me (Creators Syndicate Satire)
"By God," I said, whipping a Confederate flag from my right pocket, an American flag from my left pocket, and a Bible from my back pocket. "I bet you don't complain when one of your illegal buddies drops the his leftover bombs in your parking lot.
Ted Rall: The New York Times Repeatedly Called a Famous Cartoonist an Anti-Semite -- and Didn't Ask Him for Comment (Creators Syndicate)
"I'm not anti-Semitic. I'm anti-Zionist," Antunes told me. "In the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I am in favor of two countries, and I am against all annexations made by Israel." The Times censored Antunes' side of the story from its readers.
Mark Shields: "Joe Biden's Most Important 'Endorsement'" (Creators Syndicate)
… for Biden, who ought to, once and for all, ditch the sunglasses - sorry, Joe, it's difficult, if not impossible, to believe anyone who's wearing shades - this all-out attack from Team Trump is a tribute and a political opportunity. … Forget the polls, the Biden campaign can argue, we know which Democrat most terrifies Trump to the point that he's willing to risk his own likely impeachment and the careers and reputations of those around him. It's that straightforward: We love Biden for the enemies he has made.
Froma Harrop: Pelosi and the Power of Restraint (Creators Syndicate)
For a long time, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi held a stop sign before vocal Democrats' revving demands to get President Donald Trump's impeachment on the road. Now her sign reads, "proceed with caution." Pelosi knows what she's doing.
Froma Harrop: Which America Speaks to Hong Kong? (Creators Syndicate)
Celebrating 70 years of Communist Party rule, Chinese leader Xi Jinping stood in the open sunroof of a Red Flag limousine and shouted, "Greetings, comrades," to the masses below. Xi wore a Mao-style suit to his giant military parade, which featured a missile that could carry 10 nuclear warheads and strike anywhere in the United States. President Trump congratulated him.
Susan Estrich: The Age Issue (Creators Syndicate)
Sanders was never going to be elected president. He was never going to be the Democratic nominee. How many socialist Jews with New York accents have been elected president? Nominated? Or (other than Sanders) elected to anything? We are talking about presidential politics, friends. People vote in all the other states, too.
Susan Estrich: Harvard Wins (Creators Syndicate)
Harvard makes mistakes. There are many thousands of us who might consider ourselves to be just that. With its overly large lectures and dependence on grad students to teach, it is hardly the only place or best place to learn. But it is a world in which a bunch of well-angled kids, most of whom are neither legacies nor 1-percenters, find not just their own "tribe" but almost every other one in the world.
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Presenting
Michael Egan
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION
BANDCAMP MUSIC
BANDCAMP MUSIC YOU WILL PROBABLY NEVER HEAR ON THE RADIO
Music: "Hit You in Your Hot Spot" from the COMFORT ZONE album
Artist: Brooke Van Poppelen and Julian Villard
Artist Location: New York
Info: Julian Velard and Brooke Van Poppelen are taking their "faux-mace" to the next level! The duo joined forces in 2015 as The Comfort Zone, a monthly live show in Brooklyn where Velard (a singer-songwriter and secret comedian) and Van Poppelen (a comedian and secret singer-songwriter) mixed music and stand-up with unpredictable results. Each show culminated in an original song that deftly skewered relationships stranded at the crossroads of Netflix and chill. Now, The Comfort Zone EP brings four of those catchy tunes to life, tackling smartphone addiction, bathroom anxiety and frenzied brunch plans with the authenticity of a couple who hasn't had sex in a solid four months. Explore the funny, familiar side of love with a couple that has plenty of first-hand experience…just not with each other.
Price: $1 (USA); the 4-song EP is $4 (USA)
If you are OK with paying for it, you can use PAYPAL or CREDIT CARD
Genre: Comedic jazz pop
Comfort Zone by Brooke Van Poppelen and Julian Velard
David Bruce has over 140 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
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Michelle in AZ
from Bruce
Anecdotes
• Quite a number of hit records feature the work of studio musicians such as drummer Hal Blaine, who was inducted into the Rock and Rock Hall of Fame in 2000. Often, the studio musicians played all of the music while the stars simply sang. Mr. Blaine played drums on the recordings of the Beach Boys' "Wouldn't It Be Nice?," the Byrds' "Mr. Tambourine Man," the Carpenters' "(They Long to Be) Close to You," the Mamas & the Papas' "Monday, Monday," Elvis Presley's "Can't Help Falling in Love," Simon and Garfunkel's "Mrs. Robinson" and "Bridge Over Troubled Water," and Frank Sinatra's "Strangers in the Night." Nowadays he listens to an oldies station, which has advantages and drawbacks. He says, "It's an amazing ego trip since I'm on so many of the songs. But it has its drawbacks. You hear your youth. I hear a day at the office or a divorce."
• In 2006, Ben Knox-Miller and Jeff Prystowsky formed the music group Low Anthem. The two men had been friends and a late-night DJ team at the college radio station of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. Mr. Knox-Miller remembers "playing jazz records through the late-night shift: 2 a.m.-5.30 a.m. Those are the golden hours for radio. The only people who are listening at that time are crazy people who have psychoses that keep them up in the wee hours, calling in to us and saying some really creepy, strange stuff." And Mr. Prystowsky says, "They were so desperate for DJs at that hour. If you were willing to stay up, you got the job. We would exclusively play upright-bass jazz solos, for three and a half hours, non-stop. I saw it as our job to aid our listeners in sleeping, and, heck, everyone sleeps through a bass solo."
• Musicians can be fired for odd reasons.Nicky Byrne of the boyband Westlife, which was started in 1998 byLouis Walsh, who had put Boyzone together, remembers that Mr. Walsh wanted the musicians who worked for him to be professional: "Louis always said he wanted hard workers rather than heart-throbs (or even talented singers)." Mr. Walsh twice fired all the members of Westlife. Mr. Byrne explains why: "He even sacked us twice for messing around; once, very early on, for throwing bread rolls at each other, while strolling in late for meetings. I remember him losing it, shouting: 'You've let it all go to your heads. I don't work with people like that.' Thankfully, he listened when we begged him to take us back."
• Producer Steve "Mr. Mig" Migliore started small with a studio in a room in the home of a friend's parents in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He and the friend charged $25 an hour to produce and mix songs. But after a friendly music attorney named Brad Rubens introduced him to the major labels, he became big quickly. Mr. Migliore was broke and flipping hamburgers in a food court when he discovered that his remix of LeAnn Rimes' "How Do I Live" had reached the top spot on Billboard's adult contemporary chart. He immediately said, "Does this mean that I have a career?"
• Photographer Jim Marshall was using strobe lights as he took photographs of T-Bone Walker, and he asked Mr. Walker if he minded the lights. Mr. Walker replied that the lights did not bother him. He used to play music behind a wall of chicken wire so he and his fellow musicians wouldn't get hit with bottles and other debris. And one time a guy who had shot somebody came into the bar. The bar manager told them to keep playing, and they did until the shooter passed out and the police arrested him. So, Mr. Walker said, "[T]hem lights don't bother me none."
• When Jerry Lee Lewis was still a teenager, he performed for $15 a night, playing from 1 a.m. until dawn at an after-hours bar run by Roy Hall on Commerce Street in Nashville, Tennessee. Jerry Lee was the youngest person there, and patrons let him hold onto their watches and jewelry because they figured that because he was so young, police would not search him if they busted the bar. Sure enough, police busted the bar, and Jerry Lee, who had at least 15 wristwatches on his arms, was the only person who was not searched.
• Jazz guitarist Freddie Green worked for a long time with Count Basie, but Count Basie laid him off when during a period of financial difficulty he went from leading a big band to leading a small group that did not include a guitarist. However, Mr. Green did not want to be laid off. Therefore, he simply showed up for a gig - even though Count Basie had not called him to come back and work. Simply showing up to play had the desired result. Count Basie welcomed Mr. Green back and started giving him a paycheck again.
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Reader Comment
Current Events
A tweet
From Jeff Tiedrich:
Your reminder that when Roe v Wade is overturned, the deciding vote will be cast by the guy who was so blackout drunk all through prep school and college that he can't remember how many he assaulted, named to the bench by the guy who bragged on tape that he loves to assault women.
Linda >^..^<
We are all only temporarily able bodied.
Thanks, Linda!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
JD is on vacation.
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
The kittens are very early risers.
This Period In American History
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
US Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has said people will look back at this period of American politics as "an aberration".
The 86-year-old judge made the comment during an event at Amherst College, Massachusetts, according to The Boston Globe.
Although she reportedly skirted around questions pertaining to the topic of Donald Trump (R-Compromised)'s possible impeachment during the event, when asked by Amherst College president Carolyn Martin how she thought historians would one day regard the current political climate, Ms Ginsburg gave the brief answer of "an aberration".
The judge also shared her broader thoughts on the status of American politics, and what she expects will happen in the future.
When asked about current extremist political movements, and how they may impact the United States, Ms Ginsburg said: "The pendulum goes too far to the right, it's going to swing back. The same thing too far to the left.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Harassed At Airport
Another Journalist
U.S. Customs and Border Protection said Friday the agency is investigating an allegation that a Customs agent insisted a journalist admit he writes "propaganda" before returning his passport. Ben Watson, an editor for Defense One, wrote an article on Friday about his confrontation with the agent at Dulles International Airport in northern Virginia.
Watson said he was returning from Denmark Thursday when the agent asked about his occupation. When Watson said he's a journalist, the agent allegedly responded, "so you write propaganda, right?"
Watson said the agent repeated the question several times in a brief back-and-forth before Watson replied, "for the purposes of expediting this conversation" that he writes propaganda. He then was given back his passport.
Earlier this year, CBP apologized to a BuzzFeed News reporter who was aggressively questioned by an agent at a passport control checkpoint. "The immigration agent at JFK just saw that I work for BuzzFeed and just grilled me for 10 minutes about the Cohen story, which was fun given he gets to decide whether to let me back into the country," reporter David Mack, who is from Australia, tweeted about the incident.
In a separate incident in June, freelance reporter Seth Harp said he was detained for several hours in Austin by CBP.
Another Journalist
America's Last Slave Ship
Clotilda
Alabama steamship owner Timothy Meaher financed the last slave vessel that brought African captives to the United States, and he came out of the Civil War a wealthy man.
His descendants, with land worth millions, are still part of Mobile society's upper crust.
The people whom Meaher enslaved, however, emerged from the war with freedom but little else. Census forms that documented Meaher's postwar riches list them as laborers, housewives and farmers with nothing of value. Many of their descendants today hold working-class jobs.
Now, the history of Meaher and the slave ship Clotilda may offer one of the more clear-cut cases for slavery reparations, with identifiable perpetrators and victims.
While no formal push for reparations has begun, the subject has been bubbling up quietly among community members since earlier this year, when experts said they found the wreckage of the Clotilda in muddy waters near Mobile. Some say too many years have passed for reparations; others say the discovery of the ship makes the timing perfect.
Clotilda
Quietly Replaces Questioned Artifact
Museum of the Bible
The Museum of the Bible in Washington quietly replaced an artifact purported to be one of a handful of miniature Bibles that a NASA astronaut carried to the moon in 1971 after an expert questioned its authenticity.
The move follows an announcement last year that at least five of 16 Dead Sea Scroll fragments that had been on display at the museum were found to be apparent fakes.
The museum replaced the original microfilm Bible with one that was donated by an Oklahoma woman who wrote a book about the Apollo Prayer League, which arranged for Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell to carry tiny Bibles to the moon.
The $500 million museum was largely funded by the Green family, evangelical Christian billionaires who run the Oklahoma City-based Hobby Lobby chain of craft stores. The purported "lunar" Bible is just the latest item purchased by the family to come under scrutiny.
Steve Green, museum founder and president of Hobby Lobby, also purchased thousands of Iraqi archaeological artifacts for a reported $1.6 million, but was forced in 2018 to return them to the Iraqi government and Hobby Lobby paid a $3 million fine after authorities said they were stolen from the war-torn country and smuggled into the U.S. Museum officials have said none of those items were ever part of its collection.
Museum of the Bible
Border Wall
Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument
The Trump administration has run roughshod over environmental laws in a rush to build an unnecessary border wall. And in footage that emerged on Friday, construction efforts are just running roughshod over the environment, period.
One of the first stretches of the Trumpified wall is going up in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument (yes, they really chose a park as a starting point). Video shot by Kevin Dahl, the senior program manager for the National Parks Conservation Association in Arizona, shows construction crew toppling saguaros in their rush to prepare the site for wall construction.
Dahl told Earther bulldozers were busy knocking down saguaros and other desert plants and piling them up into slash piles when he visited the park on Tuesday. The destruction took place on the west side of the park in preparation for construction to begin there on a 78-mile chunk of Trump's wall. Organ Pipe, which runs directly up against Mexico and sits about two hours west of Tucson, already has a variety of barriers in place. They include five miles of fence to keep pedestrians out and another 25 miles of posts that act as vehicle barriers. The latter are visible in the background of the videos and photos Dahl shared with Earther.
What happens to the piles of dead brush is anyone's guess. The Army Corps of Engineers released a video last month saying that the agency would relocate saguaros along with organ pipe, ocotillo, and other types of cacti out of the wall construction site. The video says the agency is "taking great care to take care of the protected species."
The irony is that in a park, all species are generally protected. The Organic Act of 1916, which resulted in the creation of the National Park Service, states that the agency exists to "conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wild life therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations." I don't think mowing down saguaros inside a park's boundary was quite what the act's authors had in mind.
Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument
Predators Without Oversight
Accused Priests
Nearly 1,700 priests and other clergy members that the Roman Catholic Church considers credibly accused of child sexual abuse are living under the radar with little to no oversight from religious authorities or law enforcement, decades after the first wave of the church abuse scandal roiled U.S. dioceses, an Associated Press investigation has found.
These priests, deacons, monks and lay people now teach middle-school math. They counsel survivors of sexual assault. They work as nurses and volunteer at nonprofits aimed at helping at-risk kids. They live next to playgrounds and day care centers. They foster and care for children.
And in their time since leaving the church, dozens have committed crimes, including sexual assault and possessing child pornography, the AP's analysis found.
A recent push by Roman Catholic dioceses across the U.S. to publish the names of those it considers to be credibly accused has opened a window into the daunting problem of how to monitor and track priests who often were never criminally charged and, in many cases, were removed from or left the church to live as private citizens.
Each diocese determines its own standard to deem a priest credibly accused, with the allegations ranging from inappropriate conversations and unwanted hugging to forced sodomy and rape.
Accused Priests
Deadly Car Crash
UK
A spouse of a U.S. diplomat has returned to the U.S. after being involved in a deadly crash in the United Kingdom.
Neither the name of the spouse nor the U.S. diplomat has been released.
The incident involved 19-year-old Harry Dunn, who died in a collision on Aug. 27 in Croughton, a small village in central England, Northamptonshire Police announced in late August.
Dunn was on his Kawasaki motorcycle when he collided with a Volvo XC90 traveling in the opposite direction, police said.
The police superintendent explained that in order to interview a person with diplomatic immunity, police had to seek a waiver from the U.S. Embassy. Johnson said that they were later advised that the waiver had been declined and the suspect had left the U.K.
UK
Contractors Used Shady Methods
Google
With the Pixel 4, Google will reportedly be introducing a face unlock feature akin to Apple's Face ID for the iPhone. A few months ago, it was reported that Google was actually hitting the streets for "field research," paying volunteers in $5 Amazon or Starbucks gift cards to scan their faces to improve the upcoming feature. Now, a Daily News investigation has found that Google contractors targeted people with 'darker skin'-including the homeless and college students-all while playing fast and loose with consent.
For context, building facial recognition tech requires massive databases to sample from. In the past, facial recognition software hasn't been the best at being inclusive, struggling with darker skin tones and gender. Google acknowledged this was their intent in an email to Gizmodo.
The contractors were employed through Randstad, a third-party staffing company. According to the Daily News, Randstad supervisors told contractors to go after people of color and mislead volunteers as to what exactly was happening. Sources say they were instructed to tell suspicious volunteers things like "Just play with the phone for a couple minutes and get a gift card," or outright say volunteers were not being recorded. One source said they were instructed to say "oh not really" if a person asked if the software was taking a video. Other sources said they were told to distract volunteers from asking questions and to rush through the entire process to keep subjects from properly reading the accompanying consent form.
Another disturbing tidbit was contractors in California were reportedly told they could entice financially strapped people to participate by mentioning a state law that says you can trade gift cards of under $10 for cash. That would obviously incentivize contractors to prey on vulnerable populations, like the homeless or unsuspecting students. The Daily News also reported finding two contractors going undercover as students at California State University Long Beach earlier in August, offering $5 gift cards for face scans. While some students were aware of Google's involvement, many were not.
A follow-up Daily News report also shows a picture of a long line of homeless people in Atlanta lining up to partake in Google's field research. The photo was reportedly taken by a city employee, who then discovered the project was Google offering $5 incentives in exchange for 3D face scans.
Google
"Virtually Unwrapped"
Lost Scrolls
In 79 CE, as Mount Vesuvius rained hell down on the towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum below, a fine set of scrolls laid in a private library near the coastline. Along with much of the towns and their people, the scrolls were carbonized through a blast of hot volcanic debris, searing them into lumps of brittle carbon that are too fragile to unravel.
Now, almost 2,000 years on, a team of researchers say they finally have the technology to decipher the papyrus text.
Scientists from the University of Kentucky have employed the help of Diamond Light Source, a synchrotron light source science facility in the UK, to blast the carbonized scrolls with high-energy X-rays to pick up on subtle hints of ink that are invisible to the naked eye. They will then use artificial intelligence to "fill in the gaps."
This particular set of scrolls, consisting of two complete scrolls and four fragments, were found alongside thousands of other papyri in 1752 around the ruins of a Roman villa near the Bay of Naples. Collectively known as the Herculaneum papyri, the texts are thought to be the only surviving library from antiquity that exists in its entirety. The texts that have been successfully studied namely contain writings of a philosophical nature that provide a fascinating insight into the world of the Roman Empire.
Many of these scrolls remain tightly closed and impossible to read in their current state. There have been attempts to physically unfurl a handful of the closed Herculaneum scrolls, however, the researchers say these have been "largely disastrous." As such, many of the texts have remained untouched and their wisdom unknown.
Lost Scrolls
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