Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Garrison Keillor: So much can happen in an ordinary afternoon
I have been struggling this week, looking deep within myself, questioning my own values, asking myself: should I go public with the incident in 2009 when Michelle Obama put her arm around me at a luncheon in Washington? She was posing for photographs with the attendees and I had been the guest speaker and I was told to stand next to her and I did and she put her left arm around my back and pulled me toward her and squeezed. It was a perceptible squeeze. I didn't say anything at the time but I remember feeling that this was her idea, not mine, that I probably would've preferred to shake her hand, but what are you going to say to the First Lady? "Get your arm off me"?
Helaine Olen: Why do we believe Americans spend too much money on coffee and avocado toast? (Washington Post)
Suze Orman is furious. The target of the popular personal finance author's ire is not the high cost of education, nor soaring health-care expenses. No, Orman's angry that some Americans spend $1 to $3 a day at Starbucks and other similar coffee shops, costing themselves, by her count, $1 million in retirement savings if only that money was invested in a tax-free account. "It's not a need it's a want," Orman yelled in a recent CNBC video. "I wouldn't buy a cup of coffee anywhere, ever - and I can afford it. I would not insult myself by wasting my money that way." Let me first point out Orman was wearing a leather jacket that likely cost several hundred dollars - if not four figures - delivering this increasingly angry lecture.
Helaine Olen: Radical transparency for billionaires (Washington Post)
Dalio, Dimon and Schultz are united by their desire to maintain their wealth and power, even as it's increasingly obvious the system that earned them all that is breaking down. As a result, they are attempting to reposition themselves as iconoclastic political thinkers and leaders, not defenders of an increasingly unacceptable status quo. So here's some radical transparency: The biggest beneficiaries of our record-breaking age of inequality are not the people who are going to end it. Let's stop pretending otherwise.
Andrew Tobias: It Took 99 Years, But H.L. Was Right
According to Snopes, H.L.Mencken really did write in the July 26, 1920 Baltimore Evening Sun: "As democracy is perfected, the office of the President represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be occupied by a downright fool and a complete narcissistic moron."
Andrew Tobias: It Takes All Kinds
This gender stuff can be confusing - even threatening. It certainly was to me growing up. Or it can be about self-expression and freedom. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. "Between the Shades" is a documentary fresh from the festival circuit to iTunes this month. Already in hundreds of libraries and colleges (Penn State, Duke, Columbia) and licensed by PFLAG chapters, it shows that, in addition to your basic (wonderful!) heterosexual males and females (I can't emphasize this too much: I am a huge fan of heterosexuals) . . . there is an almost endless palette of other shades.
Nicholas Barber: Why don't superheroes fall in love any more? (The Guardian)
Romance was once an integral part of the genre but recent years have seen love interests hit the cutting room floor
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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
• Long after playing John Steed in The Avengers, actor Patrick Macnee was vacationing in California, where an elderly woman offered him a drive. Upon arrival, the elderly woman ran her fingers through his hair, pushed a button that lowered the backs of their seats, then, as Mr. Macnee writes, "She proceeded to behave with great mischief." Afterward, Mr. Macnee was relaxing when someone pointed a gun at him through the car window. His naked partner looked up and asked, "Good evening, officer. How can I help you?" The police officer withdrew his gun and then told his partner, "Relax, Al. It's only a couple of oldies having a final fling."
• In his old age, dancer Leonide Massine went to San Francisco to recreate his choreography of Le Beau Danube. During his stay at the Valley View Lodge, some videotapes of him giving lessons to several dancers were shown, causing some elderly residents to ask, "Did you ever dance, Mr. Massine?" He smiled at the question, replied, "A little," and then taught the elderly residents a few exercises to lessen their pain from arthritis. Shortly thereafter, the elderly residents came to Mr. Massine and thanked him for his help, saying, "I can move now. Thank you so much for your help - it is better than medicine."
• Humorist H. Allen Smith had a grandfather who was a volunteer fireman. One day the fire alarm began ringing, and Grandpa Cad Allen jumped up out of his bed at home and threw on his clothes. He was ready to run out of the house when one of his young daughters asked for a drink of water, so Grandpa Cad got it for her. Again, he was ready to leave when his wife asked him to turn down the lamp for her. Grandpa Cad did that, then at the door he turned around and sarcastically asked, "Now, if they's anything else anybody wants, just speak up, because I ain't in no goddam hurry a-tall!"
• As an old man, Sir Thomas Beecham conducted a Sir Robert Mayer Children's Concert. He slowly walked to the conductor's chair and then spoke to the audience of children, saying: "Ladies and gentlemen, my slow progress to the conductor's desk was due not to any reluctance on my part to conduct before so distinguished an audience. My slow progress was due entirely to the infirmity of old age. Our first piece is by Mozart. It was composed when he was at the age of …" - here Sir Thomas pointed to a small boy in the audience - "at your age, sir."
• Even as an old man, conductor Arturo Toscanini was known for his rages when things did not proceed to his satisfaction at rehearsals. After Toscanini flew into a rage at a rehearsal with his last orchestra, the NBC Symphony, one of the musicians asked first trumpet Harry Glantz, who had played under Toscanini earlier when he was conducting the New York Philharmonic, "Was he any worse in his Philharmonic days?" Mr. Glantz significantly pointed out, "He was 15 years younger."
• Black choreographer Katherine Dunham retired to Haiti, where she had a beautiful villa, with a swimming pool, large kitchen, many bedrooms, and a sunken Roman bath. Because Ms. Dunham was troubled by arthritis and excess weight in her later years - enough to be forced to use a wheelchair - Agnes de Mille once asked Ms. Dunham's assistant how the great choreographer was able to use the bath. The assistant replied, "With difficulty."
• A young man was determined to tease Dr. Samuel Johnson. First he told Dr. Johnson to stop being glum and instead be gay like other people. Next, he asked, "What would you give, old gentleman, to be as young and sprightly as I am?" Dr. Johnson replied, "I think I would almost be content to be as foolish."
• Ballerina Madeleine Guimard (1743-1816) was often asked in her old age to dance with her husband for visitors. They would oblige, but being aware of her age, she would have her husband first hang up a curtain that hid all of her and her husband's bodies but their feet and legs.
• When he was elderly, Church of Christ preacher T.B. Larimore preached the same sermon two nights in a row. When his wife told him, "You preached that sermon last night," he was unperturbed and replied, "It's a good one."
• When Mark Twain was very old, he sometimes would reach for a doorknob but miss it. He then would turn to his secretary and say, "Just practicing."
• A publicist once wired Cary Grant's agent, "How old Cary Grant?" However, Mr. Grant saw the message, and he wired the publicist back, "Old Cary Grant fine. How you?"
• "I have grown old without being bored. Existence is still a strange thing to me, and as a stranger I find it welcome." - G.K. Chesterton.
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© Copyright Bruce D. Bruce; All Rights Reserved
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Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
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In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Still on the windy side, but nothing like Tuesday night.
Warner Bros.
Batman
On Tuesday, President Trump (R-Monumentally Unqualified) tweeted out a video. He gave no explanation of what it was or where it came from - just an exhortation to "MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!"
The video was odd - it opened with footage of various Washington landmarks interspersed with clips of Barack Obama and Hillary and Bill Clinton. Then come clips of Trump visiting a factory, Trump meeting with Kim Jong Un, the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearing, and clips of actors Rosie O'Donnell, Bryan Cranston, and Amy Schumer, mixed in with shots of Trump at campaign rallies.
As a dramatic score plays, words appear on the screen: "First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they call you racist. Donald J. Trump. Your vote. Proved them all wrong. Trump: The Great Victory 2020."
Just a few hours later, the video was taken down from YouTube.
In a statement, Warner Bros. said that the video's use of its music was unauthorized: "We are working through the appropriate legal channels to have it removed."
Batman
Engineer Ordered to Pay Estate
Prince
Back in April 2017, engineer George Ian Boxill tried to release an EP of unreleased Prince songs called Deliverance. Boxill had planned for the EP-featuring songs he said he co-wrote and co-produced with Prince from 2006 to 2008-to come out on April 21, 2017 to mark the one-year anniversary of Prince's death.
Before Deliverance was released, however, the Prince Estate and Paisley Park Enterprises sued Boxill, claiming that he breached a confidentiality agreement that stipulated the recordings "would remain Prince's sole and exclusive property." The estate and Paisley Park Enterprises were also granted a restraining order to stop the EP's release.
In August 2018, an arbitrator ruled in favor of the estate, ordering George Ian Boxill to pay $3,960,287.65 for damages, costs, and lawyers' fees, according to The Blast. Now, a Minnesota judge has upheld the ruling, confirming that Boxill will have to pay the estate $3.96 million in damages, Billboard reports.
According to Variety, Troy Carter, the entertainment advisor to the Prince Estate, said, "Prince was an exceptionally talented musician. The estate protects the music Prince created aggressively and is pleased with the award against Mr. Boxill."
Prince
Mean To Stephen Miller
Scarborough
Donald Trump (R-Embarrassingly Inadequate) called a US talk show studio to berate presenters for criticising his adviser Stephen Miller, according to the programme's hosts.
Joe Scarborough, who fronts MSNBC's Morning Joe, said the president was "yelling" at him for "not being nice to this poor young kid".
The clash came in February 2017 after Mr Miller denounced federal judges for blocking Mr Trump's Muslim travel ban and warned "the whole world will soon see" the president's executive powers "will not be questioned".
"It's the only time I've heard Donald Trump call and yell in defence of somebody else.
"He actually said, 'You're hurting this poor young kid … you're not being nice to this poor young kid, you're killing him every day.' It was the first time actually I'd ever heard him talk about any staff member that way."
Scarborough
Online Ticket Sale Meltdown
Burning Man
When it comes to online ticketing, being radically self-reliant will only get you so far.
Scores of Burners found that out the hard way on April 10, when the annual Burning Man ticket Main Sale devolved into a frustrating and broken mess. Yup, that's right, there were some serious technical issues - and people are pissed.
The Main Sale, which this year offered up approximately 23,000 tickets and 10,000 vehicle passes, is widely known to be a bit of a crap shoot. You either luck out and get a chance to buy two tickets after waiting in digital line for some unknown amount of time, or you don't. There seems to be neither rhyme nor reason as to why some fortunate souls can purchase tickets and others can't, and many Burners have resigned themselves to this ugly truth.
That is, they had. Until today.
The unexpected technical issues reported by Burning Man ranged from would-be buyers being booted out of their place in line to being incorrectly admonished for alleged digital cheating, with some being told all tickets were sold out while others were still merrily purchasing away.
Burning Man
$147 Billion Deficit
March
The U.S. federal government posted a $147 billion budget deficit in March, according to data released on Wednesday by the Treasury Department.
Analysts polled by Reuters had expected a $180 billion deficit for the month.
The Treasury said federal spending in March was $376 billion, down 10 percent from the same month in 2018, while receipts were $229 billion, up 9 percent compared with March 2018.
The deficit for the fiscal year to date was $691 billion, compared with $600 billion in the comparable period the year earlier.
March
Second Seizure In Days
Pangolin Scales
Singapore intercepted a second shipping container packed full of pangolin scales destined for Vietnam in less than a week, authorities said on Wednesday, a combined haul that set a new record for the global transit hub.
The seizure of 12.7 tonnes of scales, worth an estimated $38 million, follows last week's haul of 12.9 tonnes. The scales in that seizure, the biggest of its kind worldwide in five years, were said to have come from about 17,000 pangolins.
"The container was declared to have contained cassia seeds," Singapore's National Parks Board, Customs and Immigration and Checkpoints Authority said in a joint statement, adding that the shipment came from Nigeria.
The authorities said the scales in this week's seizure came from two species, equivalent to around 21,000 pangolins, the world's most poached animal.
Pangolins, also known as scaly anteaters, are critically endangered. They are coveted for their meat, which is considered a delicacy, and scales are used in traditional Chinese medicine to treat aliments from cancer to arthritis.
Pangolin Scales
New Hominid Species
H. luzonensis
A new member of the human genus has been found in a cave in the Philippines, researchers report.
Fossils with distinctive features indicate that the hominid species inhabited the island now known as Luzon at least 50,000 years ago, according to a study in the April 11 Nature. That species, which the scientists have dubbed Homo luzonensis, lived at the same time that controversial half-sized hominids named Homo floresiensis and nicknamed hobbits were roaming an Indonesian island to the south called Flores (SN: 7/9/16, p. 6).
In shape and size, some of the fossils match those of corresponding bones from other Homo species. "But if you take the whole combination of features for H. luzonensis, no other Homo species is similar," says study coauthor and paleoanthropologist Florent Détroit of the French National Museum of Natural History in Paris.
If the find holds up to further scientific scrutiny, it would add to recent fossil and DNA evidence indicating that several Homo lineages already occupied East Asia and Southeast Asian islands by the time Homo sapiens reached what's now southern China between 80,000 and 120,000 years ago (SN: 11/14/15, p. 15). The result: an increasingly complicated picture of hominid evolution in Asia.
Excavations in 2007, 2011 and 2015 at Luzon's Callao Cave yielded a dozen H. luzonensis fossils at first - seven isolated teeth (five from the same individual), two finger bones, two toe bones and an upper leg bone missing its ends, the scientists say. Analysis of the radioactive decay of uranium in one tooth suggested a minimum age of 50,000 years. Based on those fossils, a hominid foot bone found in 2007 in the same cave sediment was also identified as H. luzonensis. It dates to at least 67,000 years ago.
H. luzonensis
"Sexual Ornaments"
Beautiful Males
If you're reading this then you must be a primate, and that means there's only one thing on your mind. But whether you're a capuchin looking for copulation or a man in need of a mate, you're going to have to be pretty sexy if you want to get noticed - and that comes at a price: according to a new study published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, primates with more attractive features tend to have smaller testicles.
While it might sound counter-intuitive, this moderation of masculinity actually provides an advantage in the reproductive stakes, as it allows for more genetic and energetic investment in ornamental features. In other words, there has to be a trade-off between beauty and bulge, so if you want to look good then the goolies have to go.
High sexual competition has led to the development of an array of "sexual ornaments" among male primates. These include the facial flanges of orangutans, the exaggerated noses of proboscis monkeys, and even the beards of men - all of which are designed to attract females.
The study authors searched for a relationship between these seductive embellishments and the size of the testes across 103 different primate species - including humans - and discovered that specimens with more impressive ornaments tended to have contracted cojones.
Similarly, human males with the most expensive cars also tend to be the least well-endowed.
Beautiful Males
In Memory
Charles Van Doren
Charles Van Doren, the 1950s quiz show contestant who infamously cheated his way to stardom by using answers he received in advance, has died at the age of 93. His son John told The New York Times that Van Doren died from natural causes at a retirement community in Cornwall, Connecticut, where he lived for several years.
Van Doren was born February 12th, 1925 in New York City, the son of Pulitzer Prize-awarded poet/critic Mark Van Doren and novelist Dorothy Van Doren. He attended both Cambridge University and Columbia University; he was teaching English at the latter college when he auditioned to appear on the NBC quiz show, Twenty-One, in 1957.
The decorated, 31-year-old professor appeared on the program for 14 weeks - from November 28th, 1956 to March 11th, 1957 - answering varied questions about history, medicine and geography, among other subjects. His winning streak, which earned him $128,000, made him a national star (including a Time cover) and helped catapult the show to massive ratings. After his final appearance, he signed a three-year contract with NBC, which included spots on The Today Show.
But, despite the network's statements to the contrary, rumors swirled that his appearance had been fixed. On November 2nd, 1959, he finally admitted to congressional investigators that he'd been supplied the questions and answers in advance - even coached to add drama to his performances. He pleaded guilty to second-degree perjury but served no jail time.
The disgraced star subsequently lost his Columbia job and took on a pseudonym as a writer-editor for Encyclopedia Brittanica. In 2008, he detailed the complicated circumstances of his quiz ordeal in a massive New Yorker piece.
Ralph Fiennes played Van Doren in Quiz Show, Robert Redford's Oscar-nominated 1994 film about the scandal.
Charles Van Doren
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