Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Garrison Keillor: A fine day on which I did nothing at all
Memorial Day and my love and I walked out in the park to observe the young and restless, the old and rickety, soaking up the sunshine. The laziest day of the year, meant to remember the insane fury of war. Contented families, families making an effort to ignore each other, kids teetering along on bikes or skateboards, dozens of runners each with his or her signature stride (lope, lunge, trot, traipse, scoot, sprint, stagger), picnickers lounging in the shade and dogs sniffing other dogs and toddlers acquainting themselves with the wonders of grass.
Paul Waldman: Mike Pence predicts war everywhere in the next few years (Washington Post)
"It is a virtual certainty that you will fight on a battlefield for America at some point in your life. You will lead soldiers in combat. It will happen. Some of you will join the fight against radical Islamic terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq. Some of you will join the fight on the Korean Peninsula and in the Indo-Pacific, where North Korea continues to threaten the peace, and an increasingly militarized China challenges our presence in the region. Some of you will join the fight in Europe, where an aggressive Russia seeks to redraw international boundaries by force. And some of you may even be called upon to serve in this hemisphere." - Mike Pence
Amy Chozick: Dementia Stopped Peter Max From Painting. For Some, That Spelled a Lucrative Opportunity. (NY Times)
Now Peter Max's associates are trading lurid allegations of kidnapping, hired goons, attempted murder by Brazil nut and art fraud on the high seas.
Take Our Survey on Street Harassment and Age (Stop Street Harassment)
I hope that if more people realized the predatory nature of so much street harassment - adult men preying on teenagers (and younger) - there would be much more outcry and efforts to try to stop it. To that end, since our latest national studies (2018, 2019) show that a public space is the most frequent site for sexual harassment, I have created an informal survey for YOU to take about your first street harassment experience. How old were you? How old was your harasser? How did it affect you?
Andrew Tobias: Reader Feedback
… I think democracy and honesty and science are preferable to autocracy, dishonesty, and the denial of science. A pathological liar and sociopath who kept a book of Hitler's speeches by his bedside is wrecking our democracy and the world order. Working AGAINST climate crisis mitigation. Empowering journalist-murdering autocrats. Putin is winning. The same Republican senators who called Trump a pathological liar (Ted Cruz) and a race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot … undercutting everything we stand for (Lindsey Graham) - now enable him. Under these circumstances, I'm not sure I'm being zealously partisan enough.
Andrew Tobias: "Next Up: Our Country's First Stalinist Show Trials"
"You think it's bad now?" asks Michael Tomasky in the Daily Beast. "Wait for next year's show trials."
A.C. Shilton: You Accomplished Something Great. So Now What? (NY Times)
"The No. 1 predictor of happiness," he said, is the "quality time we spend with people we care about and who care about us. In other words, relationships." However, income matters. "There's no joy in living in squalor," Dr. Gruman said. But after basic needs like food, security and clean housing are met, income stops correlating with happiness. In 2012, the World Happiness Report, produced by the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network, said that cooperation and community may contribute more to happiness in wealthy societies than income or other metrics.
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Presenting
Michael Egan
wrote:
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
from Bruce
Anecdotes
• One winter while Walter Damrosch was conducting at the Metropolitan Opera, he and his family stayed at the Cambridge Hotel on Fifth Avenue, where their waiter, Roberto, taught them about hospitality and wine. For example, he criticized a host who had ordered only one bottle of wine. Roberto said, "There are five of them, and he orders the dinner. Then I show him the wine card. He orders onebottle-one bottle for five! I fool him. I open another bottle. I shame him into behaving like a gentleman!" Later, after a performance in which Lillian Nordica had sung a fine performance of Elsa in Wagner's Lohengrin, Mr. Damrosch gave a late supper party. His daughter Gretchen was supposed to be asleep in bed, but she stayed awake and counted the popping of corks. She remembered, "There were eight people, and so far only one cork had popped. Bing, a second one. Good. Was two for eight better than one for five? Bang, and a third bottle was opened. I lay back greatly relieved, and relaxed. I must tell Roberto at breakfast. Nothing wrong with my father!"
• Brendan Mullen entered the music history books without knowing it when he rented a basement with 10,000 square feet of room for $850 monthly under an Art Deco building in Hollywood, California. He let musical friends know that they could practice and perform at parties there. These musical friends were punk pioneers on the West Coast. Some of the bands who played in the basement were the Bags, the Cramps, the Dils, the Germs, the Screamers, the Weirdos, and X. Mr. Mullen got the idea of opening a club there and charging admission, but the basement needed way too much work done to get the proper licenses due to structural and safety concerns. And, he writes, "As for a liquor license, 'Not in the lifetimes of you, your mate, and your lastborn,' according to an ABC [Alcoholic Beverage Control] inspector." The Masque existed-with interruptions-only from 18 August 1977 to 22 December 1979, but that was long enough to make Mr. Mullen famous.
• In 1951, actors Victor Mature and Jim Backus acted together in a movie version of George Bernard Shaw's Androcles and the Lion. Both wore Roman military costumes since Mr. Mature was playing the Captain of a legion and Mr. Backus was playing a Centurion. Mr. Mature was a businessman as well as an actor, and one day he invited his friend Mr. Backus to go with him to sign a legal paper during the lunch break. Mr. Mature had everything set up so that the lawyer's secretary would come to the car so he could sign the paper without getting out of the car. The signing went quickly, they had time left over, and they decided to get a drink. In full Roman warrior regalia, they walked into a bar away from Hollywood. The bartender stared at them until Mr. Mature asked, "What's the matter? Don't you serve members of the armed forces?"
• Dean Martin had a car license plate with the letters "DRUNKY," but people wonder how much he really drank. Much of the brown liquid he drank with ice is reputed to have been apple juice. However, no one doubts that Mr. Martin had a sense of humor. Once, Mr. Martin was pulled over by a police officer who recognized him, and perhaps influenced by Mr. Martin's reputation, asked him to do a few physical tests to determine if he was under the influence of alcohol. Mr. Martin agreed. He easily touched his nose with both hands, and he easily counted backwards from 30 to one. However, when the police officer asked him to walk a straight line, Mr. Martin replied, "Not without a safety net."
• Beer can come in handy. When the Globe Theater, where many of William Shakespeare's plays were first performed, caught on fire, no one was hurt. The trousers of a man caught on fire, but his neighbor put the fire out with beer. By the way, Mr. Shakespeare was a commoner without a university education. Many people have little respect for people like that, and so they do not believe that Shakespeare wrote the plays attributed to him. Over 4,000 books have been written saying that the "real" author was any of over 57 people, including Queen Elizabeth I. (By the way, Shakespeare really wrote the plays attributed to him. Commoners can be intelligent, you know.)
• Glen Campbell had many souvenirs from his long career in show business, including many photographs of himself with many notabilities. He also had a souvenir from his drinking days. He had given up drinking, but during a relapse he was stopped for driving drunk - and for a hit-and-run accident. He then proceeded to knee a police officer in the thigh. As a result, he spent 10 days in jail while wearing pink underwear. Glen's wife, Kim, says, "Sheriff Joe Arpaeo from Phoenix, Arizona, is famous for making all the inmates wear pink underwear, and I have a pair signed by the sheriff. Glen straightened up after that." Glen agrees: "Yep. I finally got broke from sucking eggs, as they say."
• William R. Boone was the long-time principal at Orlando High School in Orlando, Florida. He even died on the last day of class ever held at the high school: 6 June 1952. Students then moved to a new high school: William R. Boone High School. Near Orlando High School was Burton's, a bar and grill that students found tempting because it served beer. Jack Caldwell, the 1952 Class President, was with President Boone one day when suddenly President Boone announced, "Let's check out Burton's." They came in through the back door. Students saw Principal Boone and fled through the front door. Principal Boone then told Jack, "That should clear it out for a couple of weeks."
• A number of people who work in movies enjoy a drink or two or several. When Charlie Chaplin was working on a certain movie, he had a camera man who would tell him when it was getting close to quitting time, "Charlie, the light's better in Oldfield's." Oldfield's was a tavern that belonged to Barney Oldfield.
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© Copyright Bruce D. Bruce; All Rights Reserved
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Bonus Links
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Reader Comment
Current Events
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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
I've missed wrangling butterflies this year, but we visited every nursery in the area looking for passiflora last month, and came up empty.
While out running errands today, came across some passiflora plants and was able to snag some clippings.
If these plants take root, there is hope for butterflies in the future.
'Very Difficult'
Bob Iger
Walt Disney Company CEO Bob Iger has hinted that Disney might be willing to pull its productions out of Georgia should the state's anti-abortion law take effect.
The executive said in an interview with Reuters on Wednesday that the company would find it "very difficult" to keep its productions in the state should the impending ban on abortions come into effect next year. However, Iger did not go so far as to make any firm commitments.
"I rather doubt we will [stay]," Iger said. "I think many people who work for us will not want to work there, and we will have to heed their wishes in that regard. Right now we are watching it very carefully."
"I don't see how it's practical for us to continue to shoot there," he added.
Disney pulling its productions out of Georgia would potentially be a huge blow to the state. A number of Disney blockbusters, including Marvel Studios' "Avengers: Endgame" and "Black Panther," have recently filmed in the Georgia, taking advantage of the state's liberal tax incentives.
Bob Iger
Australia
''Egg Boy"
An Australian teenager who became a viral sensation after cracking an egg on the head of a far-right senator has donated around £55,000 to survivors of the New Zealand mosque attacks.
Will Connolly, 17, became known as Egg Boy after being filmed splattering Fraser Anning during a press conference in March.
The 69-year-old politician had sparked widespread anger a day earlier when he said Muslim migration was to blame for the Christchurch shootings, in which a white supremacist killed 51 people at two city mosques.
Now, Will, a Melbourne-based student, has revealed he has donated some A$100,000 (£55,000) raised in the aftermath of the incident.
The money comes from two GoFundMe set up by other people to cover his potential legal fees and to "buy more eggs" with.
''Egg Boy"
Up For Auction
Enigma Machine
A rare Enigma machine - a German gadget that encoded secret messages during World War II - is up for auction.
The device is unique, even among Enigma machines. That's because it has a German navy-designed, three-cipher rotor (M3), and it even has a proper name: the Funkschlüssel.
The Nazis used Enigma machines before and during WWII, from 1934 through 1945, to send directives that their enemies couldn't decipher. But as the war drew to a close, the Germans began to destroy these machines to keep them out of Allied hands.
This particular Enigma machine is housed in its original wooden case. Its metal wheels have an engraving of the Third Reich emblem - a black eagle above a swastika. On the inside of the wooden case are instructions in German on how to clean and configure the machine.
The QWERTZ keyboard (different from today's QWERTY keyboards) on the Enigma machine lights up when used. All 26 bulbs are still on the lamp board, and only one is broken, according to Nate D. Sanders Auctions.
Enigma Machine
London Not 'An English City Any More'
John Cleese
John Cleese has criticised Londoners for voting to remain in the European Union.
The 79-year-old Fawlty Towers star - who revealed last year he was moving to the Caribbean because he is "disappointed' with Britain - accused the capital city of not being English.
Cleese tweeted: "Some years ago I opined that London was not really an English city any more. Since then, virtually all my friends from abroad have confirmed my observation So there must be some truth in it...
The Monty Python's Flying Circus star - who lived in Los Angeles during the 80s and 90s before returning to the UK - has been an open supporter of Brexit, despite previously being a long-time supporter of the Liberal Democrats.
Last year he revealed his plans to move to the Caribbean island of Nevis due to his disappointment in the actions of "rightwing governments", adding that he found the debate around Brexit, "one of the most depressing things about this country".
Cleese described Nevis as "It's one of the nicest islands I've ever been on. The relationship between the races is absolutely superb. The people there are really kind."
John Cleese
What Climate Change?
Bering Sea Puffins
When an unusually large number of puffin carcasses began to wash ashore on Alaska's remote St Paul Island in the fall of 2016, the local tribal population grew alarmed.
At first they suspected the seabirds might have avian flu -- but labs on the mainland soon ruled out any disease, finding that the seabirds known for their brightly-colored beaks and thick tufts had instead starved to death.
In a new study published Wednesday researchers concluded the deaths, which occurred between October 2016 and February 2017, ran into the thousands -- and were part of a growing number of mass die-offs recorded as climate change wreaks havoc on marine ecosystems.
The paper, which appeared in the journal PLOS ONE, found that although locals recovered only 350 carcasses, between 3,150 and 8,500 birds may have succumbed to starvation.
The research team, which included scientists from the University of Washington and the Aleut Community of St Paul Island Ecosystem Conservation Office, said that from 2014 increased atmospheric temperatures and decreased winter sea ice led to declines in energy-rich prey species in the Bering Sea.
Bering Sea Puffins
'Lost' Stone Age Settlement
North Sea
Deep beneath the North Sea, scientists have discovered a fossilized forest that could hold traces of prehistoric early humans who lived there around 10,000 years ago, before the land slipped beneath the waves a few thousand years later.
The discovery gives the researchers new hope in their search for "lost" Middle Stone Age - or Mesolithic - settlements of hunter-gatherers, because the find shows that they have found a particular type of exposed ancient landscape.
The scientists took sediment samples from the submerged fossilized forest during their 11-day voyage in the North Sea aboard the research ship RV Belgica, in the Doggerland region known as Brown Bank or Brown Ridge. The scientists say they are certain they are close to finding traces of a prehistoric human settlement in the submerged lands.
"We are absolutely dead sure that we are very close to a settlement," said archaeologist Vincent Gaffney of Bradford University in the U.K., one of the project leaders. "The numbers of artifacts historically from that region tell us there is something there."
Doggerland once covered thousands of square miles between what is now the east coast of England and the European mainland. It is named after the nearby Dogger Bank, a shallow region frequented in the Middle Ages by Dutch fishing boats called doggers.
North Sea
Prime-Time Nielsens
Ratings
Prime-time viewership numbers compiled by Nielsen for May 20-26
1. "NCIS," CBS, 12 million.
2. "Live: All in the Family-The Jeffersons," ABC, 10.4 million.
3. NBA Playoffs: Golden State at Portland, ESPN, 7.99 million.
4. "The Voice," NBC, 7.97 million.
5. "Nightline: All in the Family-The Jeffersons," ABC, 7.7 million.
6. "Chicago Med," NBC, 7.5 million.
7. "Chicago Fire," NBC, 7.49 million.
8. "The Voice" (Tuesday), NBC, 7.4 million.
9. "Chicago P.D.," NBC, 6.6 million.
10. NBA Playoffs: Milwaukee at Toronto, Turner, 6.4 million.
11. NBA Playoffs: Toronto at Milwaukee, Turner, 6.3 million.
12. "This Is Farrah Fawcett," ABC, 5.8 million.
13. "The Big Bang Theory: The Special," CBS, 5.7 million.
14. "Blood & Treasure," CBS, 5.6 million.
15. "60 Minutes Presents," CBS, 5.57 million.
16. "Young Sheldon," CBS, 5.4 million.
17. NBA Playoffs: Milwaukee at Toronto, Turner, 5.36 million.
18. "Young Sheldon: Special," CBS, 5.3 million.
19. "Blue Bloods," CBS, 4.9 million
20. "The Code," CBS, 4.7 million.
Ratings
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