Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Paul Krugman: Trump Makes America Irresponsible Again (NY Times Column)
Why "tariff" isn't a "beautiful word."
Joe Bob Briggs: Stop Lying and Eat Your Salad (Taki's Magazine)
If it doesn't come from an animal-or, I guess, if you wanna get technical and include Soylent Green in our definition, an animal or a human-then it's not meat. I'm surprised I have to explain this. There's no such thing as "plant-based" meat.
Tom Danehy: Tom loves science so much he's ready to coin a few new measurements (Tucson Weekly)
Finally, a PicoStone is defined as the amount of testicular capacity in the average male Trump supporter when attempting to form the thought, "I generally support him, but one of his decisions is just wrong." To be fair, this one is still theoretical, like the Higgs Boson was for so long. In two-and-a-half years of vulgarity, criminal conduct and rampant lying, there's no proof that a PicoStone exists anywhere in the United States.
Helaine Olen: Democrats must keep talking about Jared Kushner's incompetence (Washington Post)
Okay, I admit it: I can't stop watching highlights of Jared Kushner's interview with Axios's Jonathan Swan on HBO on Sunday night. The incompetence on display is so staggering that it's hard to pick the most embarrassing moment. Is it when the young Kushner claimed that he was "successful as a businessperson," when, in fact, his main claim to fame is almost driving his family's real estate empire into the ground? The assertion that President Trump "respects people who are willing to be honest with him"?
Greg Sargent: Trump's worldview is failing spectacularly. Several new studies illustrate how. (Washington Post)
The new studies come to us courtesy of Jim Tankersley of the New York Times, who reports that both the Tax Foundation and the Penn Wharton Budget Model have concluded that Trump's tariffs amount to a significant tax increase, by raising consumer goods.
Peter Bradshaw: "X-Men: Dark Phoenix review - mutant franchise fizzles out forgettably" (The Guardian)
Sophie Turner stars in Jean Grey's 90s-set origin story that offers glimpses of intrigue before regressing into a dull CGI-fest
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Presenting
Michael Egan
replied:
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
from Bruce
Anecdotes
• Even science-fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon, author of The Dreaming Jewels and More Than Human, suffered from writer's block. In 1962, he gave a Guest of Honor speech at the World Science Fiction Convention in Chicago, Illinois, and spoke about how fellow science-fiction writer Robert Heinlein had helped him when Mr. Sturgeon, desperate, wrote him a letter about his writer's block: "I told him my troubles; that I couldn't write-perhaps it was that I had no ideas in my head that would strike a story. By return airmail-I don't know how he did it-I got back 26 story ideas. Some of them ran for a page and a half; one or two of them were a line or two. I mean, there were story ideas that some writers would give their left ear for. Some of them were merely suggestions; just little hints, things that will spark a writer like, 'Ghost of a little cat patting around eternity looking for a familiar lap to sit in.'" Mr. Heinlein did more than that. Mr. Sturgeon added, "I had told him my writing troubles, but I hadn't told him of any other troubles; however, clipped to the stack of story ideas was a check for a hundred dollars with a little scribbled note, 'I have a suspicion your credit is bent.'" By the way, Mr. Heinlein's ideas resulted in two stories by Mr. Sturgeon: "And Now the News" and "The Other Man."
• Late in her life, Anaïs Nin spoke at Western Michigan University and answered questions from the audience, which was mostly composed of students. A young woman who asked her the first question asked a very personal question: What were the worst problems she faced in her marriage? Ms. Nin simply said, "I will pass a hat around the room and ask every married person to drop a note in it about the worst marital problem he or she has had to deal with. Then I will hold the hat up and say, 'Yes, all of these.'" (She did pass the hat, but only so people could write down questions for her.) Author Stephanie Gauper was impressed by the way that Ms. Nin answered the young woman's very personal question. Ms. Gauper wrote that "the way she turned the first question into a lesson on decorum and universality moved me and the whole audience, too. The young woman was not humiliated; she indeed appeared to feel honored by the kindly attention from this still gorgeous and brilliant older woman. I have seen speakers who would nail such a questioner to the wall. Nin was so gentle and teaching, so generous."
• Isak Dinesen, the Danish author of Out of Africa, managed a coffee farm in Kenya, where soon after arriving, she tended to a young Kikuyu boy named Kamante who had a very badly infected leg. After she cured his infection, she began to be greatly in demand as a doctor. She also did the good deed of burying a girl named Wamboi who had died after falling off an oxcart and being run over by its wheels, despite being forbidden to ride on oxcarts. Her corpse lay unburied for three days because police could not decide who was at fault for her death and because the members of her tribe did not want to touch a corpse. By the way, Isak acquired the nicknames of "Lioness" and "Lioness von Blixen" (due to her marriage, she was the Baroness von Blixen) because after a lion had killed some of her cattle, she and her friend Denys Fitch Hatton hunted it. They left a carcass where the lion would find it at night, and when they heard the lion, Isak flicked on the light of a lantern and Denys shot the lion.
• In 1792, Mary Wollstonecraft published A Vindication of the Rights of Women. She did many good deeds in her life in addition to advocating for the rights of women. Her father was a drunk who physically abused his wife. Mary would sometimes put her own body in between her father and her mother in order to protect her mother. When Eliza, one of Mary's sisters, married an abusive man, Mary and a friend named Fanny Blood helped Eliza escape from him by taking a carriage to London when he was away from his home. During the journey, Eliza nervously bit and broke her wedding band into pieces. They then took a number of other carriages in an erratic pattern to foil pursuit. Later, while Mary was taking a ship from Lisbon, Portugal, to London, England, a storm arose and crippled another ship. The captain of Mary's ship at first would not allow the sailors of the crippled ship to get on board, saying that there was not enough room, but Mary threatened to report the captain, and he allowed the sailors to get on board. She also sent money to family members.
• On 14 September 1882, an elderly man intent on committing suicide jumped from a steamboat into the Thames River. On the same steamboat was Bram Stoker, who in 1897 would publish his novel Dracula. Mr. Stoker jumped in the river after the man. He held the man's head above water until help arrived. He then carried the man to his home in the Chelsea district, where his physician brother, George Stoker, tried but failed to resuscitate him. Although the elderly man died, the Royal Humane Society awarded Bram Stoker a Bronze Medal for his effort to save the man's life. Playwright Arthur Pinero wrote Mr. Stoker in a letter, "How proud I am to count myself amongst those who have the privilege of your acquaintance." In his own old age and in poor health, Mr. Stoker needed financial help. Providing it were friends such as then-popular novelist Hall Caine.
• Good deeds tend to be practical and pragmatic rather than elegant. In 1977, poet Deena Metzger fell on an icy street in New York City. A black man saw her and ordered two young boys who happened to be walking nearby, "Pick that woman up!"
• "Three Rules for Literary Success: 1. Read a lot. ?2. Write a lot. 3. Read a lot more, write a lot more."- Robert Silverberg
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Reader Comment
Current Events
This is petty, mean, and small, but it's fun to see Melanie repeatedly refuse to hold hands with Mr. Needy:
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
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In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Marine layer hung around until lunchtime.
Comedy Central Roast
Alec Baldwin
Comedy Central announced on Wednesday that Alec Baldwin will headline the next Comedy Central Roast.
Baldwin is an Emmy-winning and Oscar-nominated actor whose lengthy resume boasts such credits as The Hunt for Red October, Glengarry Glen Ross, The Departed, and The Cooler, but also The Alex Baldwin Show. He has hosted Saturday Night Live a record 17 times, and frequently pops up on the show as Donald Trump. In his spare time, he enjoys skirmishes, animal rights activism, and being the most successful Baldwin brother.
"Getting roasted will be the greatest honor of my lifetime besides being a father, a husband, hosting SNL seventeen times, receiving Golden Globes, Emmys, and working with Martin Scorsese," quipped Baldwin in a statement.
In the first promo for the roast, a portrait of Baldwin labeled "World's Greatest" can be seen hanging over a fireplace, and Baldwin says: "They say we're our own worst critic. But I can't find anything to criticize."
Alec Baldwin
Taraji P. Henson and Ellen Pompeo
Pay Gap
Recently veteran actresses Taraji P. Henson and Ellen Pompeo had a conversation for Variety's Actors On Actors series, and neither woman pulled any punches when it came to the subject of negotiating fair pay. Henson opened up about her struggle to secure high-paying jobs, which resulted in her seizing "every opportunity." When Pompeo mentioned that Henson should have been in a position to ask for more money after her work in the award-winning Hustle & Flow, Henson confirmed that the role didn't create better opportunities for her:
"I think the industry knew I was talented. But it's about money. Are you bankable? I had to continuously prove that. I've been trying to prove and improve. I was asking for half a million. I didn't get paid that until I did my first Tyler Perry film. He was the first person who paid me $500,000. I was never in a position where I could not take a job; by the grace of God, they have all been really good characters. But it was never a situation where I was like, 'I'm not going to do that.' Now, I'm finally there."
Henson also touched on the way race plays a role in negotiations: Films created and helmed by black filmmakers and actors do not receive the same major budgets as their white counterparts, making it difficult to ask for a worthy amount, even if you are the star of record-breaking shows like Empire.
"It's impossible to have this conversation without talking about race," Pompeo acknowledged. "It's such a significant piece of pay parity." The Grey's Anatomy star had her own issues with significant gaps in pay when it came to her career-cementing role. In comparison to her former co-star Patrick Dempsey, Pompeo was making almost half of his haul. "He was being paid almost double what I was in the beginning. He had a television quote. I had never done TV." But that reasoning probably shouldn't have held much weight either, Pompeo explained. "'He's done 13 pilots.' Well, none of them have gone. I didn't even realize until we were renegotiating season three. No one was offering that up."
You can catch Variety's full interview here.
Pay Gap
Todd Rundgren, Micky Dolenz, Christopher Cross
'White Album' Tour
Micky Dolenz, Christopher Cross and Todd Rundgren are teaming up with former Chicago singer Jason Scheff and Badfinger guitarist Joey Molland for the It Was 50 Years Ago Today tour celebrating the Beatles White Album. (Let's just ignore the fact that the album came out 51 years ago.) The show will mix in their own hits along with songs from the White Album.
The fine print on the tour poster reads "not affiliated or endorsed by the Beatles individually or collectively," but many of the artists on the bill do have Beatle connections. Badfinger was the first band the Beatles signed to their label Apple in 1968 and members of the group played on the sessions for John Lennon's Imagine and George Harrison's All Things Must Pass. The group also performed at the Concert For Bangladesh alongside Harrison and Ringo Starr. Todd Rundgren, meanwhile, has been a mainstay in Ringo Starr's All Starr Band going all the way back to 1989 and as recently as 2017. Micky Dolenz befriended the Beatles during his days in the Monkees and was in Abbey Road studios when they recorded Sgt. Pepper Lonely Hearts Club Band.
They haven't announced which non-Beatles songs they're going to play at the show, but if they stick to their signature tunes expect Christopher Cross to break out "Sailing," Ride Like The Wind" and "Arthur's Theme (Best You Can Do)," Todd Rundgren to revive "Bang the Drum All Day," "Hello It's Me" and "I Saw The Light" and Micky Dolenz to do "Pleasant Valley Sunday," "I'm a Believer" and "(I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone." Jason Scheff replaced Peter Cetera in Chicago and didn't sing many hits during his long tenure in the group, but he's sang (sic) classics like "25 or 6 to 4? and "If You Leave Me Now" thousands of time in concert and likely will do them again on this tour. Joey Molland didn't sing lead in Chicago, but that probably won't stop him from playing "Baby Blue," "Day After Day" and "Come and Get It."
'White Album' Tour
Reboot Starring Soleil Moon Frye
'Punky Brewster'
Another classic sitcom is eying a return with its original star. UCP is developing Punky Brewster, a sequel to the 1984 NBC sitcom, with Soleil Moon Frye set to reprise her role as the titular character that became a pop culture icon of the 1980s.
The original multi-camera series, created by David W. Duclon, centered on Punky (Frye), a bright young girl raised by a foster dad (George Gaynes). In the multi-camera/hybrid reboot, Punky (Frye) is now a single mother of three trying to get her life back on track when she meets a young girl who reminds her a lot of her younger self.
The follow-up series is written and executive produced by Steve and Jim Armogida (School of Rock, Grounded For Life). Frye will also serve as executive producer along with Duclon and Emmy-winning producer Jimmy Fox (The Arrangement) of Main Event Media, an All3Media America company.
Punky Brewster, which catapulted its young star Frye to fame, ran for four seasons, two on NBC, the rest in syndication. It nabbed three Primetime Emmy nominations including two for Outstanding Children's Program. Frye also voiced the Punky character in It's Punky Brewster, an animated spinoff series that ran two season and earned a Daytime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Animated Program.
Headed by Dawn Olmstead, NBCUniversal-owned UCP is behind Amazon's Homecoming, Netflix's The Umbrella Academy, Hulu's The Act, USA's Mr. Robot, Dirty John, The Purge & The Sinner, Syfy's The Magicians, and YouTube Originals' Impulse, among others. The studio's development slate also include Chucky for Syfy, Public Figures for Quibi, and an adaptation of the popular podcast Dr. Death.
'Punky Brewster'
Administration Nixes Educational, Recreational Activities
Migrant Children
The Trump administration on Wednesday moved to end all educational, recreational and legal services offered to migrant children in U.S. custody, warning the public and Congress that it is running out funds to take care of unaccompanied minors detained near the southern border.
Citing a "tremendous strain" on the agency fueled by the unprecedented flow of migrants from Central America heading towards the U.S.-Mexico border, the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), an office within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) charged with taking care of migrant minors, said it was winding down programs "not directly necessary for the protection of life and safety" of unaccompanied children in its custody.
An HHS official said the department was urgently asking Congress to approve $2.88 billion in emergency funding to increase housing capacity in children shelters, which are overseen by the government but operated by private contractors. The shelters were instructed this week to cease or gradually end certain services.
The minors are usually in HHS custody until a sponsor is found for them. More than 40,000 children have been transferred to HHS custody this year, according to the department. Most them are from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, a region known as the "Northern Triangle" plagued by political instability, chronic violence and suffocating poverty.
While the children await sponsors - who are typically family members living in the U.S. - HHS has been offering them English classes and allowing them to participate in outdoors activities, like soccer, within the confines of the shelters.
Migrant Children
Study Reveals A 'Hard Limit'
Human Endurance
Athletes who can run the equivalent of 117 marathons in just months might seem unstoppable. The biggest obstacle, it turns out, is their own bodies. A new study quantifies for the first time an unsurpassable "ceiling" for endurance activities such as long-distance running and biking-and it also finds that pregnancy's metabolic toll resembles that of an ultramarathon.
Physiologists and athletes alike have long been interested in just how far the human body can push itself. When exercising over a few hours, a wealth of evidence suggests most people-and mammals-max out at about five times their basal metabolic rate (BMR), or the amount of energy they expend while they're at rest. How humans use energy during longer endurance activities is another question entirely, says Herman Pontzer, an evolutionary anthropologist at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina.
To find out how many calories the athletes in the study burned, Pontzer, Carlson, and colleagues replaced the normal hydrogen and oxygen in their drinking water with harmless, uncommon isotopes of those elements-deuterium and oxygen-18. By chemically tracing how these isotopes flush out in urine, sweat, and exhaled breath, scientists can calculate how much carbon dioxide an athlete produces-a measure that directly relates to how many calories they burn.
Pontzer's team measured the initial BMRs of six runners, five men and one woman. Then they collected energy expenditure data over the course of the race to see how many calories they burned per day. The researchers plotted those data over time and analyzed them along with previously collected metabolic data from other endurance events, including triathlons, 160-kilometer ultramarathons, long-distance cycling races like the Tour de France, and Arctic expeditions.
They found that no matter the event, energy expenditure sharply leveled off after about 20 days, eventually plateauing at about 2.5 times an athlete's BMR. At that point, the body is burning calories more quickly than it can absorb food and convert it into energy, representing a biologically determined ceiling on human performance, the researchers report today in Science Advances. After an athlete hits this ceiling, their body must dip into fat reserves for energy. "It was just one of those beautiful moments of discovery that as a scientist you just live for," Pontzer says. "We ended up plotting out the very limits of human endurance, the envelope for what humans can do."
Human Endurance
Massive Swarm Over California
Ladybugs
A huge blob that appeared on the National Weather Service's radar wasn't a rain cloud, but a massive swarm of ladybugs over Southern California.
Meteorologist Joe Dandrea says the array of bugs appeared to be about 80 miles (129 kilometers) wide as it flew over San Diego Tuesday.
But Dandrea tells the Los Angeles Times that the ladybugs are actually spread throughout the sky, flying at between 5,000 and 9,000 feet (1,525 and 2,745 meters), with the most concentrated group about 10 miles (16 kilometers) wide.
It wasn't immediately known what type of ladybug was causing the phenomenon.
The Times says one species, adult convergent lady beetles, mate and migrate from the Sierra Nevada to valley areas where they eat aphids and lay eggs.
Ladybugs
FBI Releases Its File
Bigfoot
The Federal Bureau of Investigation on Wednesday released a correspondence file containing the results of tests it performed on a tissue sample alleged to be from Bigfoot, also known as Sasquatch - a purported human-like creature that was sporadically reported to be roaming the wilderness in the Pacific Northwest.
The 22-page file, made public following a Freedom of Information Act request, showed that the FBI agreed to test a hair sample "attached to a tiny piece of skin" obtained and submitted by the Oregon-based Bigfoot Information Center.
"The FBI Laboratory conducts examinations primarily of physical evidence for law enforcement agencies in connection with criminal investigations," Cochran wrote. "Occasionally, on a case-by-case basis, in the interest of research and scientific inquiry, we make exceptions to this general policy. With this understanding, we will examine the hairs and tissue mentioned in your letter."
Three months later, the FBI reported the results of its tests.
"The hairs are of deer family origin," Cochran wrote.
Bigfoot
Origins Of Native Peoples
Ancient DNA
The discovery of teeth frozen in Arctic soil have helped scientists make sense of the waves of human settlement in the Americas.
One discovery, making scientists forever grateful to some ancient tooth fairy, was of two milk teeth from distantly related boys buried near the Yana River in north-eastern Siberia. The site has been excavated for almost 20 years, bringing to light thousands of animal bones, ivory, and stone tools. None of that has been as scientifically valuable, however, as the DNA trapped in the teeth for 31,000 years because of the icy conditions.
The boys were from an ethnic group called the Ancient North Siberians who, despite their location, were twice as closely related to Europeans as east Asians.
Another paper in the same edition reports on a related study of the genetics of those who have inhabited the Arctic over the last 5,000 years. It compares the genomes of 48 ancient people from the far north and 93 modern individuals living in similar areas. The study confirms that modern populations in eastern Siberia, Alaska, northern Canada, and the Aleutian Islands are descended from a group known as the Paleo-Eskimos, who arrived in North America around 5,000 years ago.
For whatever reason, the ancestors of modern Inuit and Yup'ik people, having initially crossed the Bering Strait with the Paleo-Eskimo arrival, went back to eastern Siberia for around 1,000 years before returning to Alaska. On returning to Alaska, some members of this group apparently decided they didn't like the cold so much after all, and their genetic heritage can be found among speakers of the Na-Dene languages along the US west coast and the American south-west.
Ancient DNA
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