from Bruce
Anecdotes
Children
• James M. Barrie, author of Peter Pan, loved children. He sometimes used to go on walks with young children and find a peapod in a hollow tree. He would tell the children that the peapod contained a letter written by a fairy and when he opened the peapod, sure enough, he found a tiny letter that he read to the children.
• Mary Cassatt loved to paint children, but sometimes they did not want to be her models. One of her nephews, Gardner, Jr., appeared in her painting, Boy in a Sailor Suit, but at one point he grew tired of posing and spat in her face. The boy’s mother locked him in a closet as punishment, but Mary bought him a box of chocolates.
• One Sunday, Virginia K. Barnes sat behind the pastor’s wife and son. Before the sermon, the son asked his mother if he could be excused to go to the nursery, but his mother said that he was six years old and too old to go to the nursery. The son protested, “But, Mom, I heard it [the sermon] last night and it’s a long one.”
• As a youngster, Buster Keaton was thrown about on stage by his vaudevillian parents. In real life, he was also thrown about. When he was three years old, a cyclone picked him up — sucking him right out of a hotel window — whirled him around for a little while, then deposited him safely on the ground.
• Clifford Goldsmith was the original author of The Aldrich Family, a radio program about the troubles of teenager Henry Aldrich. Mr. Goldsmith frequently used the antics of his own children in his plots for the program, and he claimed to worry that his own children might sue him for plagiarism.
• J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter books, enjoyed the TV cartoon series Animaniacs. When her daughter Jessica was small, Ms. Rowling asked her to wake her up when Animaniacs came on early Saturday morning. Jessica did so by gleefully jumping up and down on her mother’s bed.
• As a child, Amy Tan, author of The Joy Luck Club, wanted to fit in with the children in her neighborhood, so for a week she wore a clothespin on her nose as she slept in an attempt to make it look more American and less Chinese. The only thing that happened was that her nose got sore.
• When she was two years old, J.K. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter books, got a baby sister: Dianne. Her parents gave J.K. some Play-Doh while they took care of Dianne. J.K. did exactly what any typical two-year-old would do when given some Play-Doh — she ate it.
• When Walter and Jamie Tevis moved to New Haven, Connecticut, a four-year-old girl came over to talk to them. Mr. Tevis asked, “Little girl, would your mother want you to be visiting strangers?” The little girl answered, “You’re not strangers. I know you now.”
• Opera singer Leo Slezak and his wife were very conscientious about the health of their children. Whenever the Slezak family ate in restaurants, the parents ordered boiling hot water and washed all the silverware before allowing their children to eat.
• George Inness, an important American landscape artist, was totally devoted to his work. One day, a visitor asked him how many children he and his wife, Lizzie, had, and Mr. Inness didn’t know! He replied, “Lizzie will be here soon. She knows.”
• Theodore Roosevelt’s daughter, Alice, was a terror. When her father was the President of the United States, little Alice enjoyed telling visitors to the White House that her father beat his children each and every day. (She was lying.)
• Dorothy Hamill’s autobiography, On and Off the Ice, contains some photographs her parents took of her when she was a baby and when she was a very young girl. The photographs are labeled, “Early publicity shots.”
***
© Copyright Bruce D. Bruce; All Rights Reserved
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Presenting
Michael Egan
U.S.A. was first, and correct, with:
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION
BANDCAMP MUSIC
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION OF BANDCAMP MUSIC
Music: "One Night"
EP: RACHEL & THE JELLYCATS
Artist: Rachel & the JellyCats
Artist Location: Norfolk, Virginia
Info: “Look out, it's Rachel & The JellyCats’ long-awaited record! Recorded by the band, Jacki Paolella and mastered by Scott McLean, this five-song EP comes across with sass and seduction. Songs purr, growl, whisper and wail! Rachel's voice is complex and flexible while The JellyCats’ musicianship struts with sugar and grit. The is a raw power album but it retains a sweet innocence that compliments the band’s versatile style and prowess.”
“The Bandcamp page says that this is a pre-order and more songs are to come 5 Jan 2021 (!). Apparently, they haven’t updated their page — what you get is this: $5 (USD) for five songs.” — Bruce
Price: $1 (USD) for track; $5 (USD) for five-track EP
Genre: Pop.
Links:
RACHEL & THE JELLYCATS
Rachel & the JellyCats on Bandcamp
Rachel & the JellyCats on YouTube
Other Links:
David Bruce's Amazon Author Page
David Bruce's Smashwords Page
David Bruce's Blog #1
David Bruce's Blog #2
David Bruce's Blog #3
David Bruce's Apple iBookstore
David Bruce has over 140 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Reader Photo
Moon Valley BOP
This afternoon's Bird of Paradise
David of Moon Valley
Thanks, David!
New Venture
Michael Egan
Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
Reader Comment
Current Events
Linda >^..^<
We are all only temporarily able bodied.
Thanks, Linda!
that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Overcast & looked like rain, but no rain.
‘Jeopardy!’
LeVar Burton
The 200,000-plus LeVar Burton boosters who signed a petition calling for him to be the new “Jeopardy!” host will get to see him try the job on for size.
Burton is among the final group of guest hosts for the quiz show, which lost its longtime host Alex Trebek to cancer last November and has put off announcing his successor.
Burton’s supporters seized the opportunity to launch an online petition for the actor, who starred on “Star Trek: The Next Generation” and “Roots,” and was the host of “Reading Rainbow,” the children’s educational program.
In his career, Burton has “inspired and shaped the minds of several generations of trivia-loving nerds,” according to the petition that, as of Wednesday, had 246,000 and counting signers.
TV anchors and journalists George Stephanopoulos and Robin Roberts of ABC and David Faber of CNBC and sportscaster Joe Buck are the other temp hosts getting one-week stints, Sony said Wednesday. The air dates weren’t announced.
LeVar Burton
Arkansas
Johnny Cash Day
The Man in Black is about to get his own day in Arkansas.
The Arkansas House on Tuesday gave final approval to a bill that would make Feb. 26 “Johnny Cash Day,” voting 92-0 to send the measure to Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who will sign it, according to his office. The state Senate approved the bill earlier this month.
The day won’t be a legal holiday but instead will be a memorial day marked by an annual proclamation from the governor.
It is the state’s latest effort to honor Cash, who was born in Kingsland, a tiny town about 60 miles (100 kilometers) south of Little Rock. The Legislature in 2019 voted to replace its two statues at the U.S. Capitol with ones of the country music legend and of civil rights leader Daisy Bates. A fundraising effort is underway for both statues.
Johnny Cash Day
Antoine Fuqua To Direct
‘Cat On A Hot Tin Roof’
Antoine Fuqua (Training Day, Magnificent Seven) will direct and produce a film adaptation of the Tennessee Williams’ play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof based on the 2008 Broadway production featuring an all-Black cast.
The Broadway producers Stephen C. Byrd & Alia Jones-Harvey are also aboard the project.
The 2008 staging made history with a sold out 19-week run as the first all African-American production of the Broadway classic as well as the biggest grossing play during that season. Fuqua will produce the film via his production company, Fuqua Films, and Byrd & Jones-Harvey through Front Row Productions.
Casting has not been announced.
‘Cat On A Hot Tin Roof’
Mulling Mandatory Vaccines
Burning Man
Burning Man festival organizers have said that they are considering requiring attendees to prove they have been vaccinated for COVID-19 if the organizers move forward with plans to hold this year’s counter-culture festival in the Nevada desert.
The organizers backed off an earlier statement indicating that they had already decided to make the shots mandatory. They say they won’t decide for sure until the end of the month whether the event that was canceled last year because of the pandemic will take place this summer.
Burning Man CEO Marian Goodell said in a video message posted on the group’s web site on April 8 that “vaccines will be required to come to Burning Man.” She erroneously said at that time that the state of Nevada requires that people have proof of being vaccinated at large gatherings.
She acknowledged last weekend in an updated statement on the group’s web site that she “misspoke.”
Citing a backlash from many long-time attendees at the annual event that draws more than 80,000 people to the Black Rock Desert about 100 miles (160 kilometers) north of Reno, Goodell clarified that organizers had been formulating their own guidelines on mandatory vaccinations as part of the health and safety plan they must submit to state and county officials.
Burning Man
Running 'Covert Operations Program'
Postal Service
The law enforcement arm of the U.S. Postal Service has been quietly running a program that tracks and collects Americans’ social media posts, including those about planned protests, according to a document obtained by Yahoo News.
The details of the surveillance effort, known as iCOP, or Internet Covert Operations Program, have not previously been made public. The work involves having analysts trawl through social media sites to look for what the document describes as “inflammatory” postings and then sharing that information across government agencies.
“Analysts with the United States Postal Inspection Service (USPIS) Internet Covert Operations Program (iCOP) monitored significant activity regarding planned protests occurring internationally and domestically on March 20, 2021,” says the March 16 government bulletin, marked as “law enforcement sensitive” and distributed through the Department of Homeland Security’s fusion centers. “Locations and times have been identified for these protests, which are being distributed online across multiple social media platforms, to include right-wing leaning Parler and Telegram accounts.”
The government’s monitoring of Americans’ social media is the subject of ongoing debate inside and outside government, particularly in recent months, following a rise in domestic unrest. While posts on platforms such as Facebook and Parler have allowed law enforcement to track down and arrest rioters who assaulted the Capitol on Jan. 6, such data collection has also sparked concerns about the government surveilling peaceful protesters or those engaged in protected First Amendment activities.
When contacted by Yahoo News, civil liberties experts expressed alarm at the post office’s surveillance program. “It’s a mystery,” said University of Chicago law professor Geoffrey Stone, whom President Barack Obama appointed to review the National Security Agency’s bulk data collection in the wake of the Edward Snowden leaks. “I don’t understand why the government would go to the Postal Service for examining the internet for security issues.”
Postal Service
In Real Life
DOS
Amy and Stephanie Mudd drove an hour from their home in Glasgow, Kentucky, to the city of Radcliff on April 3 to meet with an accountant at Aries Tax Service.
Mudd said her mother-in-law, who lives in the area, recommended the business because it offers a $55 flat fee to file taxes electronically.
When they got there, they saw a sign on the door that listed 10 things customers should have with them if they want the business to e-file their tax return. But the last item on the list stopped them from opening the door. It read, “Homosexual marriage not recognized.”
Stephanie Mudd said the first emotion she felt was anger that businesses can still turn away same-sex couples.
Kenneth Randall, owner of Aries Tax Service, said the issue “is a matter of personal conviction.”
DOS
Ban On Protests
Olympics
The International Olympic Committee on Wednesday approved a continued ban on protests and demonstrations at the Olympic Games, including during medal ceremonies and competitions.
IOC president Thomas Bach told reporters that the IOC executive board "unanimously approved" a recommendation of its own Athletes' Commission, which initiated a 10-month review of the IOC's protest rules amid a widespread racial justice movement in the United States.
Kirsty Coventry, the chairwoman of the Athletes' Commission, revealed the recommendation at a virtual news conference on Wednesday. The Athletes' Commission compiled a 42-page report outlining its stance, which it said was based on consultations and a survey of 3,547 athletes from around the world.
It called for the IOC to "increase opportunities for athletes' expression during the Games," but to "preserve the podium, field of play and official ceremonies" as protest-free.
The average age of respondents was 33. The average active Olympian is much younger.
Olympics
Hunted in Packs
Tyrannosaurs
A remarkable fossil site in Utah, in which several tyrannosaurs were found buried together, strengthens a burgeoning theory that these fearsome creatures hunted in packs, similar to wolves.
That tyrannosaurs were social hunters is a possibility paleontologists have been considering for more than 20 years. Back in 1910, paleontologists working in Alberta, Canada, discovered the remains of 12 tyrannosaurs that appeared to have died together. This discovery was largely forgotten until Canadian paleontologist Philip Currie, now with the University of Alberta, revisited the old finding in 1998, arguing that it was evidence for “gregarious behavior” in tyrannosaurs and that these animals were pack hunters.
Seven years later, Currie, along with several colleagues, reported on a similar discovery made in Montana, in which the remains of three tyrannosaurs, belonging to the genus Daspletosaurus, were likewise found together. And in 2014, paleontologists described fossilized dino footprints found in British Columbia, Canada, which appeared to show three tyrannosaurs moving in the same direction at the same time.
Despite this evidence, scientists have been reluctant to ascribe gregarious behavior to tyrannosaurs, claiming that the limited cognitive capacities of dinosaurs couldn’t have possibly allowed for it. Critics of this theory will now have to consider a third mass death site, as described in a new paper published in PeerJ.
The fossil site is situated within the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, and it yielded the remains of four, possibly five, tyrannosaurs, all of whom appeared to have died at the same time. The fossils were buried at the site of a former river, with the authors of the new paper saying their deaths were likely the result of seasonal flooding.
Tyrannosaurs
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