• Marjane Satrapi, the author of the graphic memoir Persepolis, which became an Oscar-nominated animated film, has sold over a million copies of that book, but even she had to deal with rejection. Early in her career, before creating Persepolis, she showed a graphic manuscript to a French publishing company’s art director who rejected it because “you don't have any style — it goes in all different directions.” Ms. Satrapi says, “I came home depressed and cried for a whole week.” But a couple of years after the successful Persepolis was published and had won awards, she was invited to show this same art director a manuscript, so she showed him the same manuscript that he had earlier rejected. This time he said, “What courage! You have tried all these different styles!” Ms. Satrapi explains what happened: “I said that’s not what you told me three years ago. And he said, ‘Did I see you three years ago?’ And I said, ‘You don’t have a very good memory, but I do.’ We ended up working together. I’m not a revenger kind of person.”
• Madeleine L’Engle Camp wrote many books from 1950 to 1959; unfortunately, only one of her books was published. When she turned 40, she received yet another rejection letter, and she cried and resolved never again to write. As she was crying, she came up with a good idea to write about, sat down at her typewriter, and started writing, having resolved to keep on writing even if she never got another book published. Later, Madeleine L’Engle became the best-selling author of A Wrinkle in Time.
• When Ursula K. Kroeber was eleven years old, she wrote a science fiction story and mailed it to Amazing Stories. Unfortunately, the editors of the magazine rejected her story and mailed it back to her. Young Ursula’s brother worried that she would be upset by the rejection; instead, she was thrilled to receive a real rejection letter, just like adult writers received. As an adult, she married Charles Le Guin, and as Ursula K. Le Guin, she wrote such books as The Lathe of Heaven and A Wizard of Earthsea.
Religion
• In 2007, author Christopher Hitchens had some interesting experiences as he toured to publicize his best-selling book God Is Not Great. In New York, he saw this sign put up by the Second Presbyterian Church: “Christopher Hitchens doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” In Raleigh, North Carolina, he appeared before a huge crowd at a Unitarian church, whose rector whispered to him, “I ought not to say this, but the church has never been this full before.” And in Austin, Texas, an audience member asked him if he knew the works of Friedrich Nietzsche, another anti-Christian author. Mr. Hitchens replied that he did, although he did not always agree with Nietzsche. The audience then asked if Mr. Hitchens was aware that Nietzsche was suffering from terminal syphilis while writing his anti-Christian works. Mr. Hitchens replied that he had heard that, but that he didn’t know whether it was true. Finally, the audience member asked if the same explanation accounted for Mr. Hitchens’ own anti-Christian works. Mr. Hitchens immediately thought, “Should have seen that coming.”
• G.K. Chesterton was a Catholic, and his Father Brown mystery stories were filled with his ideas on religion. In one story, a doctor says, “I’m afraid I’m a practical man, and I don’t bother much about religion and philosophy.” Father Brown replies, “You’ll never be a practical man ’til you do.”
Favomancy is a form of divination that involves throwing beans on the ground and interpreting the patterns into which the beans fall; it is therefore a type of cleromancy. Various forms of favomancy are present across the world's cultures. The term comes from the Vicia faba meaning Fava bean, and by way of cult etymology, from the Latin faba for "bean" and formed by analogy with the names of similar divination methods such as alectromancy.
Favomancy used to be practised by seers in Russia, in particular, among the Ubykh. Russian methods of favomancy may still exist after the departure of the Ubykhs from the Caucasus in 1864, but the details are now lost of exactly how Ubykh soothsayers interpreted the patterns formed by the beans. The Ubykh term for a favomancer (pxazayš’) simply means "bean-thrower", and it later became a synonym for all soothsayers and seers in general in that language.
Source
Mark. was first, and correct, with:
Favomancy involves throwing beans on the ground and interpreting the
pattern the beans make.
mj said:
Thank you, Dr. Lecter
Although he was looking to the past, not the future when he spoke of beans.
Randall wrote:
BEANS
Alan J answered:
Beans.
Cal in Vermont replied:
Beans. Favomancers would cast a handful of beans on the ground and find omens in the pattern thus laying the future open to scrutiny.
Dave responded:
Fava beans. The hint was of course part of a line from the film Silence of the Lambs, the only horror film to win the Oscar for best picture.
Roy, your Libtard, Snowflake friend isolating in Tyler, TX wrote:
Favomancy is a form of fortune telling that involves throwing beans on the ground and interpreting the patterns into which the beans fall. I can imagine the fortuneteller's place of business can get pretty messed up in no time at all!
Deborah, the Master Gardener responded:
Taking a WAG here, based on the name: Favomancy involves beans. What kind, cooked or dried or fresh, I don’t know.
Also, not to pick a nit, but are dried beans considered vegetables? Technically they’re legumes, but for expediency I guess classifying them as vegetables makes sense.
Less than 3 weeks until Christmas. Ack.
zorch replied:
Throwing beans.
Jim from CA, retired to ID, wrote:
Favomancy is a form of divination that involves throwing beans on the ground and interpreting the patterns into which the beans fall
Jacqueline said:
Beans
Michelle in AZ answered:
Beans; presumably Favas
Rosemary in Columbus responded:
Fava beans
Dave in Tucson replied:
Guessing today's answer is beans? Cool beans? Fava beans? String beans? Jumping beans?
Billy in Cypress said:
Beans, possibly "fava" beans?
Barbara, of Peppy Tech fame wrote:
Beans are used in favomancy
Joe ( -- Vote Blue, No Matter Who -- ) answered:
In times of pandemic I don't think a person should be wasting food by casting it about, especially beans, I love beans. In fact I had black beans for supper. So save your beans for eating and find some other method of predicting the future.
Jon L took the day off.
Stephen F took the day off.
John I from Hawai`i took the day off.
Daniel in The City took the day off.
DJ Useo took the day off.
Kevin K. in Washington DC took the day off.
Leo in Boise took the day off.
David of Moon Valley took the day off.
Doug in Albuquerque, New Mexico, took the day off.
-pgw took the day off.
Kenn B took the day off.
Micki took the day off.
Ed K took the day off.
Angelo D took the day off.
Harry M. took the day off.
George M. took the day off.
Gary K took the day off.
Roy the (now retired) hoghead (aka 'hoghed') ( Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid. ~Frank Zappa ) took the day off.
Saskplanner took the day off.
Gateway Mike took the day off.
Steve in Wonderful Sacramento, CA, took the day off.
MarilynofTC took the day off.
Paul of Seattle took the day off.
Brian S. took the day off.
Gene took the day off.
Tony K. took the day off.
Noel S. took the day off.
James of Alhambra took the day off.
BttbBob has returned to semi-retired status.
~~~~~
CBS starts the night, as usual, with '60 Minutes', followed by a FRESH'A Holly Dolly Christmas', then a FRESH'NCIS: The Expendable One', followed by another FRESH'NCIS: The Expendable One'.
NBC fills the night with LIVE'Sunday Night Football', then pads the left coast with local crap, and maybe an old 'Dateline'.
ABC begins the night with a FRESH'America's So-Called Funniest Home Videos', followed by a FRESH'Supermarket Sweep', then a FRESH'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?', followed by a FRESH'Card Sharks'.
The CW offers a FRESH'Pandora', followed by a FRESH'The Outpost'.
Faux has a RERUN'The Simpsons', followed by a RERUN'Bob's Burgers', then a FRESH'The Simpsons', followed by a FRESH'Bless The Harts', then a FRESH'Bob's Burgers', followed by a FRESH'Family Guy'.
MY recycles an old 'Big Bang Theory', followed by another old 'Big Bang Theory', then still another old 'Big Bang Theory', followed by yet another old 'Big Bang Theory'.
A&E has the movie 'Jurassic Park', followed by the movie 'The Lost World: Jurassic Park'.
AMC offers the movie 'Rudolph's Shiny New Year', followed by the movie 'Planes, Trains & Automobiles'.
BBC -
[6:00AM] HIDDEN HABITATS - GREAT BARRIER REEF
[6:15AM] HIDDEN HABITATS - AMAZON
[6:45AM] UNDERWORLD: RISE OF THE LYCANS
[8:45AM] UNDERWORLD: BLOOD WARS
[10:45AM] OBLIVION
[1:45PM] JUDGE DREDD
[3:45PM] NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM: SECRET OF THE TOMB
[6:00PM] STAR TREK
[9:00PM] STAR TREK
[12:00AM] NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM: SECRET OF THE TOMB
[2:15AM] JUDGE DREDD
[4:15AM] MONTY PYTHON'S FLYING CIRCUS - THE NUDE MAN
[5:00AM] STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE - PROPHET MOTIVE (ALL TIMES ET)
Bravo has 'Real Housewives Of Atlanta', followed by a FRESH'Real Housewives Of Atlanta', then a FRESH'Real Housewives Of Potomac', followed by a FRESH'Watch What Happens: Live'.
Comedy Central has the movie 'Wedding Crashers', followed by the movie 'Get Hard', then the movie 'Superbad'.
FX has the movie 'Dr. Seuss' How The Grinch Stole Christmas', followed by the movie 'Dr. Seuss' The Grinch'.
IFC -
[6:00am - 9:30am] Saved By The Bell: The College Years
[10:00am - 1:30pm] Three's Company
[2:00pm] National Lampoon's European Vacation
[4:00pm] Vegas Vacation
[6:00pm] National Lampoon's Vacation
[8:15pm] Vegas Vacation
[10:15pm] National Lampoon's Vacation
[12:30am] National Lampoon's European Vacation
[2:30am] Jackass 3.5
[4:30am] Baroness Von Sketch Show - Don't Call Me Lady
[5:00am] Parks And Recreation
[5:30am] Parks And Recreation (ALL TIMES ET)
Sundance -
[6:30am] monk - Mr. Monk Meets The Godfather
[7:30am] monk - Mr. Monk And The Girl Who Cried Wolf
[8:30am] monk - Mr. Monk And The Employee Of The Month
[9:30am] monk - Mr. Monk And The Game Show
[10:30am] monk - Mr. Monk Takes His Medicine
[11:30am] richie rich
[3:30pm] jack frost
[6:00pm] caddyshack
[8:00pm] ghostbusters
[10:30pm] ghostbusters ii
[1:00am] caddyshack
[3:00am] ghostbusters
[5:30am] hogan's heroes (ALL TIMES ET)
SyFy has the movie 'The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn: Part 1', followed by the movie 'The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn: Part 2'.
Before “stan” was a colloquialism used to describe obsessive fandom, it was a hit single off Eminem’s 2000 album “The Marshall Mathers LP.” Now, two decades later, comedian Pete Davidson parodied the song on “Saturday Night Live” by turning it into a twisted Christmas anthem, “Stu,” and the rapper himself got in on the fun.
With his hair bleached blond, as Eminem’s was in the late-1990s and early 200s, and wearing a white tank top as Devon Sawa did in the music video for “Stan,” Davidson descended down some basement steps to write his letter to Santa, which you can watch in the video above.
Surrounded by cut-out photos of jolly ole Saint Nick, he began, “Dear Santa / I can’t believe the year is almost over / it’s getting colder, I’m a year older but I’m still your soldier.”
Rather than wax nostalgic about his love for the man in the red coat who brings joy and presents to children all over the world, Davidson’s track turned into a plea for one present he wanted this year, aka “the only thing keeping me alive / Dear Santa, please bring me a PS5.”
Eminem’s “Stan” featured Dido singing the chorus, and Kate McKinnon took on that role in “Stu.” But Eminem and Sir Elton John also famously dueted the track at the 43rd Annual Grammy Awards, so Bowen Yang took on the Rocket Man for a verse, too.
President Barack Obama expressed confidence in President-Elect Joe Biden’s character as the latter begins his transition into the White House.
Promoting his new memoire A Promised Land, Obama sat down with The Tonight Show’s Jimmy Fallon to talk his experience as Commander In Chief, his greatest accomplishment as president and the Trump administration’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic. Excited for his former VP to take the charge, along with Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris, Obama said Biden’s character is what the country needs.
“The thing about Joe is that he genuinely loves people, everybody. Joe is exactly who he appears to be,” he said on Friday.
He remembered hitting the campaign trail with his VP pick years ago, noting that Biden would constantly stir up conversation with supporters and rally attendees. Obama joked that touring with the to-be president meant being tardy.
But while he took The Tonight Show to speak about the incoming president, Obama also used the time to address outgoing president Donald Trump (R-Corrupt) and his administration’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic. When asked about whether it was difficult to take the back seat as Trump sat in office, Obama said it was difficult, adding that it was even harder as the Covid-19 pandemic started.
San Francisco will ban tobacco but not cannabis smoking in apartments to counter the effects of secondhand tobacco smoke.
The city's Board of Supervisors passed the amended ordinance by an 8-3 vote with Board President, Norman Yee, among those dissenting.
He told The Guardian: "While there are great benefits to cannabis, there are still health risks in exposure to secondhand cannabis smoke."
The board rejected the original proposal which sought to exempt only medical marijuana users because state law prohibits cannabis users from smoking in public places, according to The Guardian.
It passed by 10-1 with only Supervisor Dean Preston objecting before Rafael Mandelman introduced the amendment, CNN reported.
A California psychologist convicted of tax evasion was at the center of a mysterious, recently disclosed Justice Department investigation into whether White House officials were illegally lobbied to obtain a presidential pardon.
The effort to obtain the pardon for the psychologist, Hugh Baras, involved a prominent Washington attorney and a major donor to President Donald Trump, according to lawyers involved in the case. But lawyers for both men say neither is under investigation.
One of the lawyers, Reid Weingarten, confirmed that the pardon was sought on behalf of Baras. That was also confirmed by another person familiar with the investigation, who insisted on anonymity to discuss a Justice Department investigation.
The new details only partly answer questions that emerged after a court document was unsealed this week revealing that federal prosecutors have been looking as recently as last summer into a possible lobbying and bribery scheme aimed at securing a pardon from Trump.
It’s still not clear who has been targeted in the investigation, what exactly prompted the probe and whether any charges are likely. Most of the information in the 18-page order was redacted, including the identities of the people under investigation.
It’s been a month since the presidential election and an overwhelming majority of Republicans in Congress continue to refuse to utter the words President-elect Joe Biden.
According to a Washington Post survey of 249 Republicans in the House and Senate, nearly 90 percent “will simply not say who won the election” — with two falsely claiming Trump won.
So far only 25 congressional Republicans are brave enough to risk Trump’s ire and acknowledge Biden’s win. As the Post points out, Hillary Clinton conceded the morning after the 2016 election was called, and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer issued a statement congratulating then-President-elect Trump.
Biden told CNN this week that a few Senate Republicans have congratulated him, but not publicly.
“There have been more than several sitting Republican senators privately called and congratulated me,” Biden continued, “And I understand the situation they find themselves in. And until the election is clearly decided in the minds, where the electoral college votes, they get put in a very tough position.”
After tragedy struck the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico on Wednesday, the scientific community mourned the loss of an astronomical landmark.
There is now only one last remaining giant, single-dish, radio telescope in the world: China's 500-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST).
Completed in 2016 and located in the Guizhou province of southwest China, the observatory cost $171 million and took about half a decade to build. Its sheer size allows it to detect faint radio-waves from pulsars and materials in galaxies far away; 300 of its 500-meter diameter can be used at any one time.
Experts say that in the next decade, FAST is expected to shine in terms of studying the origins of supermassive black holes or identifying faint radio waves to understand the characteristics of planets outside the solar system.
Japan’s space agency said its helicopter search team has retrieved a capsule, which is carrying asteroid samples that could explain the origin of life, that landed on a remote area in southern Australia as planned Sunday.
“The capsule collection work at the landing site was completed . . .,” the space agency said in a tweet about four hours after the capsule landed. ”We practiced a lot for today ... it ended safe.”
Hayabusa2 had successfully released the small capsule on Saturday and sent it toward Earth to deliver samples from a distant asteroid that could provide clues to the origin of the solar system and life on our planet, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency said.
Early Sunday the capsule briefly turned into a fireball as it reentered the atmosphere 120 kilometers (75 miles) above Earth. At about 10 kilometers (6 miles) above ground, a parachute was opened to slow its fall and beacon signals were transmitted to indicate its location.
About two hours after the capsule’s reentry, JAXA said its helicopter search team found the capsule in the planned landing area. The retrieval of the pan-shaped capsule, about 40 centimeters (15 inches) in diameter, was completed about two hours later.
Hundreds of millions of years ago, one of the very first animals on Earth died at the bottom of an ancient ocean. In life, it was a humble sea sponge; in death, it had no bones, nor teeth, nor shell to leave behind as evidence of its brief, bottom-dwelling existence. But it did have fat molecules — or so it seemed.
In 2009, a group of much later animals (human scientists) were studying a slab of ancient sea sediment when they discovered the fossilized remnants of what appeared to be those same sponge fat molecules, trapped among the rocks. The sediment dated to 635 million years ago — roughly 100 million years earlier than the oldest confirmed animal fossil on record — but the ancient molecules were unmistakably biological in origin, and matched those found in modern sponges, the researchers wrote. As more and more of these biomarkers were discovered across ancient seafloor samples, a question emerged: How could these early sponges be so widespread, and yet not leave a single body fossil behind?
Now, two new papers in the journals Nature Ecology and Evolution provide an answer. Those ancient fat molecules didn't come from an animal at all, the researchers argue, but rather from some old, rotten algae whose molecular remains were transformed by the ravages of geologic time. After mimicking those geologic processes in a lab experiment, the researchers successfully altered modern algae molecules into fats identical to those found in the ancient sediment.
"This all means that the evidence previously linked to the oldest animals on Earth is derived from algae, not animals," Lennart van Maldegem, a co-author of one of the studies and a geoscientist at Australia National University, told Live Science. "That moves the oldest definitive evidence of animals by almost 100 million years, to the fossil imprint of Dickinsonia, roughly 558 million years ago."
The crucial molecule in all these studies is a distinct type of sterol, or fat compound, called C30 24-isopropylcholestane — essentially, a blob of fat wrapped in 30 carbon atoms. While some sterols, such as cholesterol, are widespread among animals (including humans), these unique C30 sterols are almost exclusively associated with demosponges — a diverse class of marine animals that includes about three-quarters of all sea sponges known on Earth.
Astronomers were hit Thursday (Dec. 3) with a huge wave of data from the European Space Agency's Gaia space observatory.
Those researchers can now explore the best-yet map of the Milky Way, with detailed information on the positions, distances and motion of 1.8 billion cosmic objects, to help us better understand our place in the universe.
"Gaia data is like a tsunami rolling through astrophysics," said Martin Barstow, head of the physics and astronomy department at the University of Leicester, who is part of Gaia's data processing team. He was speaking at a virtual news conference held Thursday, at which another Gaia researcher, Giorgia Busso of the Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands, also told reporters that this data has produced "a revolution" in many fields of astrophysics, from the study of galactic dynamics like stellar evolution to the study of nearby objects like asteroids in the solar system.
Gaia launched in December 2013 to map the galaxy in unprecedented detail. The $1 billion spacecraft orbits the Lagrange-2, or L2, point, a spot about 1 million miles (1.5 million kilometers) away from Earth, where the gravitational forces between our planet and the sun are balanced and the view of the sky is unobstructed. Gaia can measure about 100,000 stars each minute, or 850 million objects each day, and can scan the whole sky about once every two months.
The latest trove of data improves upon the precision and scope of the two previous Gaia data sets, which were released in 2016 and 2018. For example, compared to the 2018 data, which included measurements for 1.7 billion objects, the 2020 data improves by a factor of two the accuracy of the data points for proper motion, or the apparent change in the position of a star as viewed from our solar system.
You have reached the Home page of BartCop Entertainment.
Do you have something to say?
Anything that increased your blood pressure, or, even better, amused or entertained?
Do you have a great album no one's heard?
How about a favorite TV show, movie, book, play, cartoon, or legal amusement?
A popular artist that just plain pisses you off?
A box set the whole world should own?
Vile, filthy rumors about Republican hypocrites?
said:
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
