Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Garrison Keillor: A few thoughts before heading off to dinner
I'm a man of considerable loyalty. I stick with a pair of shoes for years, and I still use Ipana toothpaste because it sponsored Fred Allen on the radio, though sometimes I buy Colgate in support of higher education. But I'm all done with the friend who invited me to dinner last month. He is off my list for good.
Greg Sargent: Trump feeds his voters one of his most ridiculous scams yet (Washington Post)
It's worth noting that this latest scam comes even as he's pushing forward with very real punitive measures toward asylum seekers. In addition to efforts to make it harder to apply and qualify for asylum, Trump is now rolling out a new policy to charge some asylum seekers application fees and deny some work permits while awaiting hearings. As immigration advocates point out, this is strikingly cruel, given that they are fleeing horrible conditions at home. It's also worth noting that Trump cut off aid to their Central American home countries that might improve those conditions.
Paul Waldman and Greg Sargent: Democrats offer Trump an infrastructure deal that isn't going to happen (Washington Post)
What's more, as a senior Democratic aide pointed out to us, Trump just doesn't have the bandwidth for getting something through Congress if Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) doesn't want it to happen. "Everything the Trump administration has achieved legislatively has been pushed through by McConnell," the aide said. "If McConnell is not on board with a deal, Trump has shown no sustained interest in getting anything across the finish line."
Victoria Shineman: Why Florida's new voting rights amendment may not be as sweeping as it looks (The Conversation)
I'm a political scientist who researches the effects of restricting and restoring the voting rights of people convicted of crimes. There is legislation currently pending in the Florida statehouse. If it becomes law, that measure would greatly reduce the number of people who would have their voting rights restored by Amendment 4.
Steve Rose: "The new nerds: how Avengers and Game of Thrones made everyone geek out" (The Guardian)
Fans have followed - and pored over - the incredibly long, detailed and complicated narratives of the Marvel Universe and the Westeros saga for a decade. Will we ever scale such heights of geekdom again?
Steve Rose: "Wrongcom: why is Hollywood smitten with the Woody Allen Type?" (The Guardian)
In Long Shot, Seth Rogan's goofy loser bags the refined Charlize Theron, following in the footsteps of too many romantic comedies.
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Presenting
Michael Egan
responded:
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
Reader Suggestion
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from Bruce
Anecdotes
• Elsie Clark, a 79-year-old Canadian, was having a bad day. On Dec. 30, 2009, she was returning home to Winnipeg, Manitoba, after visiting family in Texas. She received bad information at the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport and missed her flight. Another flight was delayed by bad weather. Also, because of a bad hip, she needed to use a wheelchair while traveling. Now, she was on a flight to O'Hare International Airport, and she did not feel well. "I was so thirsty and hungry," Ms. Clark said. "I felt absolutely deserted, and I was scared because I kept thinking, 'What is going to happen in Chicago if I miss my plane?' I would have to sit on the hard airport bench all night." She needed someone to talk to, and she began to talk to a man with polished shoes because she had learned as a child that people who dressed well respected both themselves and other people. She said, "I wanted to talk to somebody to get my mind off things for a little while. So, I said, 'Sir, do you mind telling me what you do because I've always admired shiny shoes.'" The man, Dean Germeyer, 43, runs a technology-consulting group in Chicago. He remembers, "People were coming by and putting their hands on her shoulders and saying, 'I hope you get home tonight.' She was doing OK, but you could tell she was at a breaking point." He adds, "There was a connection between Elsie and myself. She wasn't asking for anything at all." Mr. Germeyer is a good Samaritan. Once the plane landed in Chicago, he wheeled Ms. Clark as quickly as he could to her terminal, but her flight had already taken off. Since she had missed the flight to Canada because her flight from Texas to Chicago had been delayed due to bad weather, the airline gave her a voucher for a hotel. Mr. Germeyer, however, said about Ms. Clark, "She is somebody's grandmother. And to slide this piece of paper across the desk and say, 'Here is your voucher, good luck,' when she hasn't eaten, doesn't have her luggage and doesn't know Chicago … that really aggravated me." He telephoned his wife, Nina, to announce that he was bringing a guest home for dinner. His wife said later, "This is why I married Dean. He couldn't [let] this little old lady […] just sit at the airport all night while he went home and had a nice meal and [slept in] a warm bed." After dinner, he took Ms. Clark on a brief tour of Chicago, and then he paid for her stay at a suite at the Affinia Hotel, which is located next to the building he lives in. He also paid for a limo to take her to the airport the next morning so she could catch her flight home. Ms. Clark said, "He even gave me a new toothbrush and toothpaste. I just sat down when I got to the hotel, and I cried and cried and cried. Everything he did for me was just so beautiful." She added, "He walked in with me on his arm so I wouldn't slip and said, 'Look after this lady.' When I got up to my room, it wasn't a room - it was a suite! I had to use my cane just to walk to the bathroom." As a way to repay Mr. Germeyer's kindness, Ms. Clark told her local newspaper (the Winnipeg Free Press) about his generosity. As a result, Mr. Germeyer was also written up in The Chicago Tribune, and he received many emails (many of them from Canadians) thanking him for his kindness to Ms. Clark. Mr. Germeyer said that he did not spend much money on his good deed: the cost of the hotel room and limo were less than $250. He said, "I just wanted to make sure that she got some sleep that night." Ms. Clark said about his good deed: "Have you ever heard anything like it before in your life? My daughter asked if he had a brother!"
• Fashion designer Vicky Tiel tends to dress comfortably for flights, as do many people of wealth and fashion. For one flight, she wore ripped jeans and a ripped jean jacket. She had a boarding pass for first class, but the stewardess looked her over and made her sit in coach, although she protested. She says, "Didn't the hostess know that the antitravel look is for those who reallytravel? The well-dressed couple in first class is actually the pretty secretary sleeping with her older boss, hoping to move up to trophy wife." When she arrived in Atlanta, she wanted to file a complaint, but Leticia Moise from CNN Atlanta recognized her and suggested a story: "The Fashion Designer Who was Thrown Out of First Class." Ms. Tiel modeled the clothing she was wearing, and Ms. Moise asked a passerby, "Would you let her into first class?" He looked her over, and then he said into the microphone, "Hell, no!"
• In 1982, Ray Bradbury, age 62, took his first flight in an airplane. Normally, while traveling he took a passenger train across land or an ocean liner across sea, but he was attending the opening of EPCOT Center in Florida as a guest of The Walt Disney Company, and his passenger train trip home to California was suddenly cancelled. He asked The Walt Disney Company to buy him a plane ticket home, give him three double martinis, and "pour him on the plane." All went well. He discovered that he was not actually afraid of flying - he was afraid of being afraid of flying and of doing such things as running up and down the aisles, screaming. In his later years, he frequently flew.
• When dancers Ted Shawn and Ruth St. Denis were touring, the towns they performed in began to blend together after a while, and sometimes they forgot where they were. Once, they reached for their tour list to find out the name of the town they were in, but they didn't know the date, so the tour list was of no help. They ended up asking a policeman directing traffic, "Can you tell us the name of this town?"
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© Copyright Bruce D. Bruce; All Rights Reserved
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Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
Reader Comment
Current Events
What's Next?
So many inflammatory headlines, so little action. WTF is Congress going to do? I'm in favor of impeachment but will that really get #45 out of power? Jesus Mary and Joseph, I've never seen the like in my lifetime.
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
JD is on vacation.
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Lovely marine layer hung around most of the day.
UN Goodwill Ambassador
Ben Stiller
In over eight years of war, the headlines of suffering and violence in Syria have, at times, faded.
Actor Ben Stiller tried to change that on Wednesday.
The goodwill ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees testified in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about the humanitarian impact of the war and what the U.S. should be doing about it.
It couldn't come at a more critical time. There are rising concerns of intense fighting in the country's northwest province Idlib -- the last rebel stronghold that's in the crosshairs of strongman Bashar al Assad and his backers Russia and Iran, but also a hub of terror groups like al-Qaeda's affiliate.
For those areas liberated from the Islamic State, there are major questions about what comes next as the Trump administration plans to draw down its troop levels and has pulled funding and called for other countries to pay for stabilization projects critical to restoring services and keeping terror groups at bay.
Ben Stiller
Sentenced To 50 Weeks
Julian Assange
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange arrived at Southwark Crown Court in central London Wednesday raising a defiant fist in front of cameras, before being sentenced to 50 weeks behind bars for jumping bail in 2012.
Assange skipped bail and stayed at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he was wanted on sexual assault allegations, which he has denied. He was arrested at the embassy in mid-April.
In a letter read to the court, Assange apologized to those who "consider I have disrespected them," and said he had struggled in difficult circumstances.
British Judge Deborah Taylor handed him a sentence just under the maximum term for the offense, which was a full year, saying he displayed a "disdain for the law of this country."
The judge said Assange should have left the embassy to face due process "with the rights and protections which the legal system in this country provides."
Julian Assange
"Rue St.-Honore, Apres-Midi, Effet de Pluie"
Pissarro
A federal judge in Los Angeles ruled Tuesday that a Spanish museum that acquired a priceless, Nazi-looted painting in 1992 is the work's rightful owner, and not the survivors of the Jewish woman who surrendered it 80 years ago to escape the Holocaust.
Although U.S. District Judge John F. Walter criticized Baron Hans-Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza, the German industrialist whose name now graces the Madrid museum where the painting by Camille Pissarro hangs, for not doing all of the due diligence he could have when he acquired it in 1976, he found no evidence the museum knew it was looted art when it took possession in 1993.
Under Spanish law, he ruled, the painting is legally the museum's, although he also criticized Spain, calling its decision to keep it "inconsistent" with international agreements that it and other countries have signed "based upon the moral principle that art and cultural property confiscated by the Nazis from Holocaust (Shoah) victims should be returned to them or their heirs."
The museum's U.S. attorney, Thaddeus Stauber, said he believes the decision finally puts an end to a bitter legal fight that has pitted the family of Lilly Cassirer against the museum for 20 years.
Walter, who has seen the case returned to court twice by appeals and conducted the trial Stauber mentioned last December, indicated in his 34-page ruling that another appeal still could be possible. A lawyer for Lilly Cassirer's great-grandson, David Cassirer of San Diego, didn't say whether the family plans to appeal.
Pissarro
Actor Arrested
Rick Schroder
Actor Rick Schroder has been arrested on suspicion of domestic violence for the second time in a month.
Los Angeles County sheriff's Deputy Juanita Navarro says deputies were called to Schroder's home near Malibu early Wednesday and saw evidence of a fight between Schroder and a woman whose name was not released.
Schroder was arrested, jailed and released after posting $50,000 bond.
He was arrested at his home for a similar incident with the same woman on April 2.
As Ricky Schroder, he was a child star known for the TV series "Silver Spoons" and the movie "The Champ."
Rick Schroder
Hives Set Ablaze
500,000 Bees
Police are searching for the person or people who destroyed numerous beehives by setting them ablaze in a rural town some 40 miles south of Houston, CBS Dallas/Fort Worth reported. The Brazoria County Sheriff's Office said the attack happened early April 27 and damage could amount to thousands of dollars.
The Brazoria County Beekeepers Association (BCBA) told the Houston Chronicle there could be up to 30,000 bees per colony and there were an estimated 20 damaged hives, resulting in more than 500,000 bees killed.
BCBA said they are adding $1,000 to the $5,000 reward being offered by the sheriff's office for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of those responsible.
Images from BCBA showed charred hives strewn across the yard and even one floating in a nearby lake.
"It's bad enough to think in today's world this would happen but dumping them over and then setting fire to them is beyond comprehension," the organization wrote on Facebook. "Pray that the queens are still there in the remaining colonies."
500,000 Bees
Military Stops Tracking Key Metric
Afghanistan
The U.S. military has stopped tracking the amount of territory controlled or influenced by the Afghan government and militants, a U.S. watchdog said on Tuesday, one of the last remaining public metrics that tracked the worsening security situation in the war-torn country.
The move comes as U.S. and Taliban officials have held several rounds of talks aimed at ensuring a safe exit for U.S. forces in return for a Taliban guarantee that Afghanistan will not be used by militants to threaten the rest of the world.
The Taliban announced the start of a spring offensive in early April. Even before the announcement, combat had intensified across Afghanistan in recent weeks and hundreds of Afghan troops and civilians have been killed.
The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) said in a report published late Tuesday night that the U.S. military had told the watchdog it was no longer tracking the level of control or influence the Afghan government and militants had over districts in the country.
Over the past few years, the U.S. military has restricted data on the Afghan war being shared with the public, including the size of the security forces, casualty numbers and the attrition rate for the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF).
Afghanistan
Jiggling Like Jell-O in Space
'Buckyballs'
The Hubble Space Telescope recently spied new evidence of a peculiar molecule: wiggly buckyballs, which have intrigued astrophysicists since they were discovered in space nearly a decade ago.
Dubbed Buckminsterfullerene, these supersize molecules are made of 60 carbon atoms linked together in pentagons and hexagons to form a hollow sphere. The shape of these structures is much like a soccer ball, or like the geodesic domes designed by 20th-century architect Richard Buckminster Fuller (the inspiration for the molecule's name).
Buckyballs were first spotted in space in the form of a gas in 2010, and then as particles in 2012. And now, Hubble has spotted the first evidence of charged buckyballs hiding in the thin plumes of gas and dust that drift between stars, known as the interstellar medium, scientists reported in a new study.
Buckyballs - the largest known molecules in space - exist on Earth in forms that are created synthetically. These molecular giants also appear naturally, as a gas emitted by burning candles and as solids in certain kinds of rock, NASA previously reported.
Buckyballs also wiggle and jiggle "like jello," with 174 different vibration patterns, according to NASA.
'Buckyballs'
In Memory
Russ Gibb
Russ Gibb, a former disc jockey and band promoter who launched a music hall in Detroit to rival east and west coast venues and kick-started a world-class Motor City music scene, died Tuesday night of heart failure at Garden City Hospital. He was 87.
Gibb, a local concert promoter and schoolteacher, started the Grande Ballroom on Grand River in Detroit in 1967 and then showcased live acts for budding talents like Ted Nugent and the Amboy Dukes, MC5, Iggy Pop and the Stooges and others.
He had gone west in 1966 and saw what promoter Bill Graham was doing at the Fillmore in San Francisco and decided he wanted the same for Detroit.
He did that and more, bringing acts that ended up influencing the rock genre. The Grande also hosted Cream, Howlin' Wolf, Iron Butterfly, Jeff Beck, Pink Floyd, Traffic, B.B. King and countless others along with the local acts.
"He was a real important, iconic person in Detroit culture in the '60s and '70s," said M.L. Liebler, an English professor at Wayne State University who knew him for years. "He will probably remembered as the guy who brought Detroit into the new music scene of its day because the Grande Ballroom was really the iconic music place in the middle of the country."
Liebler was introduced to Gibb through his radio show on what was then WKNR-FM in the '60s. The deejay was known as "Uncle Russ."
Gibb also left his mark in the classroom. He taught communications at Dearborn High for 30 years, extending his teaching philosophy to legions of students over the decades. During his tenure, he sought to instruct in the fundamentals and then let students take ownership of their creativity.
The school's video studio was named in his honor for his work with communications students, said David Mustonen, director of communications and marketing for Dearborn Public Schools.
Russ Gibb
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