Garrison Keillor: Soon September, and then sanity returns
I'm an old man, I didn't just fall off the rutabaga wagon, so you have to listen to me. I look back on a lifetime of wretched vacation trips - the misery of canoeing the Boundary Waters wilderness in a cloud of mosquitoes - the week in Maine, listening to rain on the roof. And then there was Australia, twenty-five hours from Minnesota: either you fly first-class for the price of a three-bedroom home, or you fly steerage like a criminal in leg irons, and spend two weeks dreading the return. And there was Barbados, where a white man who lay on the beach for ten minutes opened the door to a world of pain and spent a week trying to keep any material object from touching his skin.
Andrew Tobias: A Well-Regulated Militia
Sensible solutions seem so simple: 1) A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, anyone should be allowed to join the National Guard. 2) Each free state's National Guard should be well regulated. …
Steve Rose: "Devil's advocate: are satanists now the good guys in the fight against the evangelical right?" (The Guardian)
Where the city council of Phoenix, Arizona, began its meetings with a Christian prayer, for example, the Satanic Temple demanded that satanic prayers should also be said. The council chose to drop the prayers altogether. When the Child Evangelism Fellowship set up the pro-Christian Good News clubs in US public schools, the Satanic Temple introduced its own After School Satan clubs - promoting scientific rationalism. And when the Oklahoma state capitol permitted the installation of a Ten Commandments sculpture in its grounds, the Satanic Temple campaigned to erect its own 8ft-high statue of Baphomet, the goat-headed, cloven-hoofed deity.
The subversive messages hidden in The Wizard of Oz (BBC)
If The Wizard of Oz had come out in the patriotic 1940s or 1950s, it's hard to imagine that this counter-cultural classic would have got away with making a flying monkey out of contemporary society. But Fleming and his team conjured up the most powerful of children's movies: a twister that whirls us into a world of hardship and chaos, of useless leaders and their gullible followers, and then reminds us that it's the very same world we were in already.
Composed by Bobby Troup, and first recorded by Nat King Cole in 1946, the lyrics read as a mini-travelogue of the highlights between Chicago and LA. What is the title of this rhythm & blues standard?
"(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66" is a popular rhythm and blues standard, composed in 1946 by American songwriter Bobby Troup. The song uses a twelve-bar blues arrangement and the lyrics follow the path of U.S. Route 66 (US 66), which traversed the western two-thirds of the U.S. from Chicago, Illinois, to Los Angeles, California.
The lyrics read as a mini-travelogue about the major stops along the route, listing several cities and towns through which Route 66 passes, viz. St Louis; Joplin, Missouri; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Amarillo, Texas; Gallup, New Mexico; Flagstaff, Arizona; Winona, Arizona; Kingman, Arizona; Barstow, California; and San Bernardino, California. Winona is the only town out of sequence: it was a very small settlement east of Flagstaff, and might indeed have been forgotten if not for the lyric "Don't forget Winona", written to rhyme with "Flagstaff, Arizona". Many artists who have covered the tune over the years have changed the initial lyrics, usually to "It goes to St. Louis, down through Missouri..." then continuing on with Oklahoma City and so on. Of the eight states through which the actual route passes, only Kansas and its cities-US 66 spends just eleven miles (18 km) inside the state's southeast corner-are not mentioned by the song. Chuck Berry famously mispronounces Barstow to rhyme with "cow" instead of correctly pronouncing it to rhyme with "go".
"Route 66" was first recorded in 1946 by Nat King Cole, whose rendition became a hit on both the U.S. R&B and pop record charts. Cole later re-recorded the tune in 1956 (for the album After Midnight) and 1961 (The Nat King Cole Story).
Source
Mark. was first, and correct, with:
(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66.
Randall wrote:
Route 66
Dave said:
(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66.
Alan J answered:
Route 66.
mj responded:
Educated guess
Since I saw a sign this weekend marking the road's starting point,
"Route 66".
Kevin K. in Washington, DC, replied:
"(Get Your Kicks On) Route 66".
It was covered by lots of others, and I heard it in one version or another all the time as a kid.
Deborah responded:
I'm not even going to look this up; I'm that sure that it's "Route 66."
Busy as all get-out these next 3 days, and that doesn't include any work in the gardens or bike rides. Ack.
John I from Hawai`i says,
"Route 66."
Dave in Tucson wrote:
Today's answer has got to be "Route 66". Song was in the early Rolling Stones line up in the early '60s, when they toured again in 1969 the lyric "When you make that California trip" had a radically different meaning.
One of the best versions I've hears was a live performance by Asleep at the Wheel where they flawlessly inserted the TV show theme & then went back to the original again.
Marilyn of TC said:
Get your kicks on Route 66.
Daniel in The City answered:
Route 66
Cal in Vermont replied:
(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66.
David of Moon Valley took the day off.
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BttbBob has returned to semi-retired status.
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• The myth of the Judgment of Paris explains the origin of the Trojan War. The Trojan prince Paris was the judge of a heavenly beauty contest, in which he was to award a golden apple to the most beautiful goddess. He gave the golden apple to Venus, who helped him win the heart of Helen. Unfortunately, Helen was married, and the Trojan War was his attempt to get her back. An opera based on the myth - Opera Il Pomo D'oro - was presented when Leopold I married the Spanish princess Margarita in 1667. Antonio Cesti, the writer of the opera, was no fool - he made sure that the golden apple was given to Margarita.
• Soprano Adelina Patti was beloved by royalty all over the world. Once, she was asked who was her favorite royal personage. She thought for a moment, and then answered, "Well, the Tsar Alexander gives the best jewelry."
Sex
• Young, pretty opera singer Mary Garden was dining with an old man named Chauncey Depew, who was the President of the New York Central Railroad. Ms. Garden was wearing a low-cut, shoulderless dress, and Mr. Depew kept staring at her cleavage. Finally, Mr. Depew asked, "I am wondering, Miss Garden, what keeps that dress up?" Ms. Garden replied, "Two things, Mr. Depew. Your age, and my discretion."
• Sir Thomas Beecham once told a soprano, who was lying in a prone position during a death scene, to sing louder because he couldn't hear her. She replied, "Don't you realize that one can't give of one's best when one is in a prone position?" Sir Thomas replied, "I seem to recollect that I have given some of my best performances in that position."
Superstitions
• Luciano Pavarotti had a superstition - he wouldn't sing unless he finds a bent, rusty nail on stage. Of course, smart opera impresarios make sure that their stage has a bent, rusty nail for Mr. Pavarotti to find. In New York, Mr. Pavarotti did not find a bent, rusty nail on stage, so he declined to sing. Fortunately, Maria Teresa Maschio also is superstitious, and she carries a bent, rusty nail for good luck. The theater personnel borrowed the bent, rusty nail, placed it on stage, Mr. Pavarotti found it, and the performance was saved - afterward, Ms. Maschio was given back her bent, rusty nail.
• Many people in opera have either superstitions or little rituals that they perform, or both. After a performance, tenor Plácido Domingo will return to the empty stage and say "Au revoir." He regards this as a way of ensuring that he will return. And, like tenor Luciano Pavarotti, Mr. Domingo must find a bent nail before the performance. (Stagehands often plant bent nails for these tenors to find.)
Tobacco
• Enrico Caruso smoked, and he insisted on smoking. While at the Imperial Theater of Berlin, he started smoking in his dressing room. The stage director visited him to tell him that no smoking was allowed in the theater. Mr. Caruso replied that he needed to smoke in order to calm his nerves. The stage director left him, but soon the opera superintendent visited him to tell him that no smoking was allowed in the theater. Mr. Caruso replied, "Dear sir, I regret infinitely, but I have already said that I feel very nervous, and if I am not allowed to smoke in peace, to my great regret I will not sing this evening." The superintendent suggested a compromise: Mr. Caruso could smoke as long as a fireman was in the dressing room with him. Mr. Caruso agreed to the compromise, and as he finished each cigarette the fireman took the butt from him and threw it in a bucket of water.
• While singing Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni at the Teatro Colón, Buenos Aires, Argentina, tenor John Brecknock was invited to a dinner party, where he noticed that the guests frequently disappeared for a short time, then reappeared. Because he was a guest, he did not ask the reason for such behavior. Eventually, he asked for permission to smoke a cigar, and he discovered that the guests had been disappearing because they were desperate for a smoke, and they had assumed that they should not smoke around Mr. Brecknock because he was a singer.
CBS opens the night with a RERUN'Big Bang Theory', followed by a RERUN'Young Sheldon', then a FRESH'Big Brother', followed by a RERUN'FBI'.
On a RERUNStephen Colbert (from 6/4/19) are Emma Thompson, Adam Scott, and Spiritualized.
On a RERUNJames Corden, OBE, (from 6/20/19) are Michael Sheen, Paul Giamatti, and Mumford & Sons.
NBC begins the night with a RERUN'The Wall', followed by a RERUN'Ellen's Game Of Games', then a RERUN'L&O: SVU'.
On a RERUNJimmy Fallon (from 7/29/19) are Rachel Brosnahan, Carla Gugino, Kyle "Bugha" Giersdorf, and Ty Dolla $ign.
On a RERUNSeth Meyers (from 7/25/19) are Michael Moore, 2 Chainz, and Brian Michael Bendis.
On a RERUNCarson 'The Scab' Daly (from 9/13/18) are Michel Gondry, Deafheaven, and Shannon Purser.
ABC starts the night with a FRESH'Holey Moley', followed by another FRESH'Holey Moley', then a FRESH'Reef Break'.
On a RERUNJimmy Kimmel (from 8/6/19) are Ben Stiller, Robin Thede, Brad Paisley, and Max featuring Quinn XCII.
The CW offers a FRESH'The Outpost', followed by a FRESH'Two Sentence Horror Stories', then a RERUN'Two Sentence Horror Stories'.
Faux fills the night with LIVE'NFL Preseason Football', then pads the left coast with local crap.
MY recycles an old 'The Good Wife', followed by another old 'The Good Wife'.
AMC offers the movie 'National Lampoon's Vacation', followed by the movie 'Vegas Vacation'.
BBC -
[6:00AM] HIDDEN HABITATS - SEASON 1 - EPISODE 2-Serengeti
[6:30AM] STAR TREK: VOYAGER - SEASON 5 - EPISODE 15-Dark Frontier, Pt. 1
[7:30AM] STAR TREK: VOYAGER - SEASON 5 - EPISODE 16-Dark Frontier, Pt. 2
[8:30AM] STAR TREK: VOYAGER - SEASON 5 - EPISODE 17-The Disease
[9:30AM] STAR TREK: VOYAGER - SEASON 5 - EPISODE 18-Course: Oblivion
[10:30AM] STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION - SEASON 5 - EPISODE 19-The First Duty
[11:30AM] STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION - SEASON 5 - EPISODE 20-Cost of Living
[12:30PM] STAR TREK: THE ORIGINAL SERIES - SEASON 2 - EPISODE 18-The Immunity Syndrome
[1:45PM] RAMBO III (1988)
[4:00PM] FIRST BLOOD (1982)
[6:00PM] RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II (1985)
[8:00PM] THE TAKING OF PELHAM 1 2 3 (2009)
[10:30PM] FIRST BLOOD (1982)
[12:30AM] RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II (1985)
[2:30AM] THE TAKING OF PELHAM 1 2 3 (2009)
[5:00AM] DIRK GENTLY'S HOLISTIC DETECTIVE AGENCY - SEASON 1 - EPISODE 1-Horizons (ALL TIMES EDT)
Bravo has the movie 'Tyler Perry's A Madea Christmas', followed by the movie 'Tyler Perry's Madea's Big Happy Family'.
Comedy Central has all old 'The Office' all night.
Scheduled on a FRESHThe Daily Show it's Crazy Rich Nation: A look at the shady business that rich people have been up to lately.
Scheduled on a FRESHLights Out with David Spade are Arturo Castro, Sarah Tiana, and Thomas Lennon.
FX has the movie 'The Fate Of The Furious', followed by the movie 'Grown Ups 2', then a FRESH'Baskets', and another 'Baskets'.
History has 'Pawn Stars', followed by a FRESH'Ax Men', then a FRESH'Mountain Men', then a FRESH'Alone'.
IFC -
[6:00A] The Three Stooges - Punchy Cowpunchers
[6:05A] The Three Stooges - We Want Our Mummy
[6:30A] The Three Stooges - Yes, We Have No Bonanza
[6:55A] The Three Stooges - The Yoke's on Me
[7:20A] The Three Stooges - Ants in the Pantry
[7:45A] Miss March
[9:45A] Coneheads
[11:45A] Wayne's World
[1:45P] Wayne's World 2
[3:45P] 48 HRS.
[6:00P] Office Space
[8:00P] We're the Millers
[10:30P] We're the Millers
[1:00A] The Campaign
[3:00A] Coneheads
[5:00A] Sherman's Showcase - The Ladies of The Showcase
[5:30A] Sherman's Showcase - The Showcase Dancers (ALL TIMES EDT)
Sundance -
[6:01am] The Andy Griffith Show
[6:35am] The Andy Griffith Show
[7:10am] The Andy Griffith Show
[7:45am] The Andy Griffith Show
[8:20am] The Andy Griffith Show
[8:55am] The Andy Griffith Show
[9:30am] The Andy Griffith Show
[10:00am] The Andy Griffith Show
[10:30am] Rain Man
[1:00pm] Law & Order
[2:00pm] Law & Order
[3:00pm] Law & Order
[4:00pm] Law & Order
[5:00pm] Law & Order
[6:00pm] Law & Order
[7:00pm] Law & Order
[8:00pm] Law & Order
[9:00pm] Law & Order
[10:00pm] Law & Order
[11:00pm] No One Saw a Thing - Cycle of Violence (ALL TIMES EDT)
SyFy has the movie 'The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1', followed by the movie 'The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2'.
TBS:
Scheduled on a FRESHConan Flula Borg and Mohanad Elshieky.
Sean Spicer (R-Spokesliar)'s casting in the upcoming season of "Dancing with the Stars" is prompting pushback - including from one of the show's hosts, Tom Bergeron.
Spicer, who resigned from his post as White House press secretary in 2017, was announced Wednesday on "Good Morning America" as one of the celebrities who will compete on Season 28 of the reality show.
Athletes Lamar Odom and Ray Lewis, "Bachelorette" star Hannah Brown and supermodel Christie Brinkley are also among the celebrities who will lace up their dancing shoes.
Bergeron, who has hosted the show since its inception in 2005, tweeted that he previously told producers he hoped that after a year-long hiatus, the return of "Dancing with the Stars" would be a "joyful respite from our exhausting political climate and free of divisive bookings from any party affiliations."
"Subsequently, (and rather obviously), a decision was made to, as we often say in Hollywood, 'go in a different direction,'" Bergeron wrote, adding that it was the prerogative of the show's producers and ABC to make what decisions it deem best for the franchise.
Taylor Swift is using a creative loophole to counter Scooter Braun dropping $300 million dollars to buy her music catalog, revealing plans to rerecord her first six albums, which could cause Braun to lose a ton of cash.
The singer sat down for an interview with Tracy Smith on "CBS Sunday Morning," where she denied her label head Scott Borchetta's claims of being offered the chance to buy her catalog. She claims to have first heard about it online despite Borchetta's story.
Swift continued to stand by her story and called out her former boss in the interview. When asked if she would re-record her entire first six albums to gain control of the masters, Swift said, "Yeah, absolutely."
Swift has stood her ground in the ongoing feud with Braun over his $300 million deal with Big Machine Label Group founder Scott Borchetta, which gave his company the masters to all her songs prior to the upcoming album "Lover".
She has expressed outrage over not being offered the right to purchase the masters, calling the Braun deal the "worst case scenario". Swift claimed she was offered an extension of her recording contract with Big Machine Records, which had a provision that would eventually allow her to buy the music.
Earlier this year, Avengers: Endgame broke all kinds of box office records. The movie's massive haul worked out well for many of its stars. As a result, both Chris Hemsworth and Robert Downey Jr. cracked the top five of the 2019 edition of Forbes' annual list of highest-paid actors in the world. But there is still one man with enough star power to beat out even the Avengers: The Rock. Dwayne Johnson officially topped the list for the first time since 2016. Combined with the fact that he just married longtime girlfriend Lauren Hashian in Hawaii over the weekend, the Rock is undeniably having a great week.
Forbes analyzed the period from June 1, 2018-June 1, 2019, and calculated that Johnson made $89.4 million during that stretch. The famously prolific actor only starred in one movie that was released during that period (Skyscraper), Forbes writer Madeline Berg noted that "he also gets paid $700,000 per episode for HBO's Ballers and seven figures in royalties for his line of clothing, shoes and headphones with Under Armour," as well as a hefty percentage of the box office returns for his high-grossing franchise movies. With Hobbs & Shaw in theaters now, Johnson can probably count on a high spot on next year's list as well.
Hemsworth ($76.4 million) and Downey ($66 million) snagged the second and third spots on the list, thanks mostly to Endgame profits. Behind them, the top five is rounded out by Bollywood star Akshay Kumar ($65 million) and Jackie Chan ($58 million), whose acting profits are augmented by his own line of movie theaters. Though Bradley Cooper ($57 million) wasn't able to take home an Oscar for A Star Is Born, he did make enough money on it to land at the no. 6 spot along with Netflix superstar Adam Sandler (also $57 million). The rest of the top 10 includes other Endgame stars Chris Evans ($43.5 million) and Paul Rudd ($41 million), as well as Will Smith ($35 million) who recently had his highest-grossing movie ever with Aladdin.
Quantum mechanics often has difficulty breaking through to the general public, which is where the importance of "Schrödinger's Cat" lies. The thought experiment captured the general imagination, with scientists today still working to answer its challenges. Now a new study looks at how the cat in the famous puzzle could exist through a bit of quantum trickery.
First, let's recap "Schrödinger's Cat." In 1935, Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger was looking at a concept called a "superposition." Superposition is when two waves meet and overlap and interact, which can lead to different results based on the circumstances. The concept can be seen in the regular-sized world as well, in everything from water ripples on a lake to noise-canceling headphones.
Schrödinger wasn't a fan of the then-current understanding of quantum mechanics, which posited the idea of quantum superposition occurring until particles interacted with or were observed by the external world. To mock this idea, he created his own scenario, which he called "Cat Paradox":
One can even set up quite ridiculous cases. A cat is penned up in a steel chamber, along with the following device (which must be secured against direct interference by the cat): in a Geiger counter, there is a tiny bit of radioactive substance, so small, that perhaps in the course of the hour one of the atoms decays, but also, with equal probability, perhaps none; if it happens, the counter tube discharges and through a relay releases a hammer that shatters a small flask of hydrocyanic acid. If one has left this entire system to itself for an hour, one would say that the cat still lives if meanwhile no atom has decayed. The first atomic decay would have poisoned it. The psi-function of the entire system would express this by having in it the living and dead cat (pardon the expression) mixed or smeared out in equal parts.
Schrödinger meant for his scenario to mock quantum superposition, but in time, many physicists began to see the cat paradox as far less ridiculous than he imagined. The newest case: A team of German, Italian, and American researchers just built the actual experiment with twenty qubits?-units of quantum information, like a binary bit displaying a 0 or a 1 as information.
When Don-Old Trump (R-Abomination) targeted mental illness as the cause of the mass shootings that killed 31 people in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, federal health officials made sure no government experts might contradict him.
A Health and Human Services (HHS) directive on 5 August warned communication staffers not to post anything on social media related to mental health, violence and mass shootings without prior approval.
That alarmed some government mental health experts who said they felt muzzled at a moment many Americans were searching for answers to the US epidemic of mass shootings, said three agency employees.
"Mental illness and hatred pull the trigger. Not the gun," Trump said immediately after the shootings. In the following days, he doubled down on his statement, arguing that America should reopen mental institutions shuttered decades ago as a way to address mass shootings.
While mental illness is sometimes a factor in such shootings, it is rarely a predictor, according to a growing body of research. Most studies of mass shooters have found that no more than a quarter of them have diagnosed mental illness. Researchers have noted more commonly shared attributes include a strong sense of resentment, desire for notoriety, obsession with other shooters, a history of domestic violence, narcissism and access to firearms.
A nuclear war between the US and Russia could plunge the world into a nuclear winter, a simulation has confirmed, as tensions rise following the US pulling out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty and conducting a mid-range cruise missile test.
Researchers from Rutgers University, the University of Colorado Boulder, and the National Center for Atmospheric Research used a new climate model to simulate what would happen to the Earth's atmosphere in the event of an all-out nuclear war between the two countries, and compared it to a simulation by the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies conducted in 2007. The new study confirmed the findings that a nuclear war would have catastrophic consequences for the planet, plunging the Earth into a 10-year-long nuclear winter.
The latest study, published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, found that the nuclear detonations would inject about 147 million tons (150 billion kilograms) of soot into the atmosphere.
This would then be spread around the stratosphere, plunging the Earth into darkness and nuclear winter within weeks of bombs being dropped. According to the model, the soot would not visibly clear for around seven years.
Rainfall would be reduced by around 30 percent globally in the months following the attacks, likely causing huge problems for food production.
Wildlife officials are investigating why panthers and bobcats in three Florida counties are walking abnormally and having extreme difficulty controlling their back legs.
The cats appear to have no trouble using their front legs, but their hind legs crisscross and sometimes completely give out under their weight as they walk, causing them to stumble, then struggle to continue walking, trail footage from counties of the west coast of southern Florida shows.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) said Monday that the agency has confirmed neurological damage in one panther and one bobcat, while video footage captured in Collier, Lee and Sarasota counties show eight panthers and one bobcat demonstrating varying degrees of the leg condition.
Another panther photographed in neighboring Charlotte County could also be suffering from the condition, according to the FWC. The affected panthers in the video are mostly kittens, while the bobcat is an adult.
The FWC is now testing the cats for toxins, including rat poison, along with possible infectious diseases and nutritional deficiencies.
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