Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Garrison Keillor: What we did Friday night, if you want to know
The beauty of Friday night was the presence of the young that closes the door to the vast ghostly galleries of the past, particularly the parts that make no sense. They are water under the bridge. Brooding accomplishes nothing: you may as well stick your finger up your nose. So we talked about Thanksgiving. The young French wife is looking forward to her husband making turkey and dressing and cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie. They're happy as two peas in a pod. Long ago, we got kicked in the stomach. Why bring it up now and rain on their parade and be a wet blanket? That's putting the cart before the horse. So I didn't. But you are remembered, President Kennedy. Still waters run deep.
Michael Sainato: Walmart offers Thanksgiving workers measly discount in place of holiday pay (The Guardian)
Thanksgiving and Black Friday mark the beginning of the festive season in the US, but Walmart workers are not feeling the cheer. The world's largest retailer will not be offering staff extra pay for working some of the busiest days of the year. Instead they will be offered a discount to shop at their own store.
Greg Sargent: The new Democratic realism is cause for optimism (Washington Post)
There is an increasing sense among political scientists and other informed observers that the profound political dysfunction of this moment actually portends a period of serious and far-reaching reform to come. One reason for this is that the challenges of the moment have caused a kind of newfound realism about the machinery of politics and the rules of political competition to set in among Democrats. This is manifesting itself in all sorts of different ways, and is storing up energy that will likely produce real change once they get back in power.
Andy Beshear (D) the governor-elect of Kentucky and John Bel Edwards (D) the governor of Louisiana: How Democrats can win, everywhere (Washington Post)
For one of us (Edwards), it meant visiting the 53 parishes that voted for Trump. For the other (Beshear), it meant many trips to Kentucky counties that hadn't voted for a Democrat in a decade or more. We met the voters where they are, running on greater access to health care, education and good-paying jobs. Only by talking about the issues voters care about can you earn back their trust.
Why Agnès Varda's Cléo from 5 to 7 deserves to be a classic (BBC)
Agnès Varda received more votes than any other director in BBC Culture's poll of the greatest films made by women. Caryn James explores why the experimental director is finally gaining recognition - and what makes Cléo from 5 to 7 so special.
Laura Snapes: "New rules: the destruction of the female pop role model" (The Guardian)
Somewhere between Britney and Billie Eilish, liberated by social media and their direct relationship with fans, millennial and Gen Z women claimed the right to be complicated pop auteurs.
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Presenting
Michael Egan
replied:
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION
BANDCAMP MUSIC
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION OF BANDCAMP MUSIC
Music: "King Elisabeth" from the album NIGHTMARE EP
Artist: Magic De Spell
Artist Location: Greece
Info: The record company is Geheimnis Records in Athens, Greece.
"This album is consisting of the band's first ever (and long sought-after) 7-inch EP called 'Nightmare', including the songs 'Poor Johnny's Lonely Blues', 'Sweating All Over' and 'Virgin Freedom", 2 songs from the 'Happening '82' compilation ['End Of Nirvana' and 'C.B. (City Is Burning)'] and 6 previously unreleased songs from the 1981-82 season. All tracks were performed by the original first line-up: Alex Kyriakakis (vocals), George Scarlatos (bass), Theodore Vlahakis (drums) and George Alahouzos (guitar). With these songs they were established as a punk rock band (although their influences were not totally 'punk' and their sound is not what a 'punk rocker' would define as 'punk'), successfully combining elements of the first generation British punk bands with the 70's rock." - Geheimnis Records
Price: €1 EURO (approximately $1.15 [USD]) for song; €7 EURO (approximately $8.05 [USD]) for eleven-track album
If you are OK with paying for it, you can use PAYPAL or CREDIT CARD.
Genre: Rock Instrumental
Magic De Spell NIGHTMARE EP on Bandcamp
Geheimnis Records on Bandcamp
David Bruce has over 140 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
New Venture
Michael Egan
David E Suggests
Kitchens
David
Thanks, Dave!
Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
from Bruce
Anecdotes
• After movie shorts made by the Three Stooges - Moe, Larry, and Curly - started being shown on TV, the Three Stooges made many, many fans among the kids who saw them on TV. One day, Moe's daughter asked him to pick up his grandchildren - Mike and Jeff - from school. Moe agreed, and when school let out, here came Mike and Jeff - and a couple of hundred other kids. Mike and Jeff had told their friends that one of the Three Stooges was coming to pick them up, and their friends had told their friends, who had told their friends. Things were chaotic for a while, and finally a teacher asked Moe to leave because of the near-riot conditions. By the way, Moe once received a telephone call from his daughter, who told him good news. She had bought a copy of the World Book Encyclopedia, and a photograph of the Three Stooges was in it! Later, Moe looked up "Comedy" in the World Book Encyclopedia, and he saw a photograph of himself and Larry wrapping an "iron" bar around the neck of Curly.
• In 1959, Mel Brooks, before he became really famous, attended a wrap party at a restaurant for the movie Happy Anniversary, in which his friend Carl Reiner appeared. Also eating at the restaurant, across the room, was playwright Moss Hart, whom Mr. Brooks recognized. Mr. Brooks approached Mr. Hart, loudly saying, "Hello. You don't know who I am. My name is Mel Brooks. Do you know who you are? Your name is Moss Hart. Do you know what you've written? You wrote Once in a Lifetime with George Kaufman and You Can't Take It with You and The Man Who Came to Dinner. You wrote Lady in the Dark and you directed My Fair Lady." Mr. Brooks continued naming all the things that Mr. Hart had accomplished during his life. Then he grew louder, "You should be arrogant! You have earned the right to be supercilious! WHY ARE YOU LETTING ME TALK TO YOU?"
• Charlie Chaplin was widely imitated. One day, he was watching one of his imitators on a street in New York when a small boy pushed him. Mr. Chaplin asked him, "What's the matter?" The small boy said, "Oh, git outa me way. I wanta see Charlie Chaplin. Whada you care about seein' him? Youse guys always gets in a kid's way." On another occasion, Mr. Chaplin had finished shooting a scene in an alley. The people he was working with left, but Mr. Chaplin stayed because he wanted to watch some crap-shooting newsboys. A police officer came by and wanted to run Mr. Chaplin off, but Mr. Chaplin protested, "I'm Charlie Chaplin, and I've been working here!" The police officer replied, "You Charlie Chaplin! Huh, I guess I know Charlie Chaplin when I see him. You're just one of his bum imitators. Get out!"
• As a young comedian, Jim Carrey made out a $10 million check to himself "for acting services rendered," and carried it around in his wallet as a physical symbol of an important goal. Later, he received $10 million for starring in The Mask 2 - and $20 million for starring in Liar, Liar. Along the way to mega-success, he achieved success as an actor in the TV comedy series In Living Color. Unfortunately, his fame did have a downside when he took his daughter out for trick-or-treating on Halloween. Perhaps exaggerating a little, Mr. Carrey says that people would say, "It's the dude from In Living Color! Here's an extra candy! Do something [funny]!"
• Terry Gilliam considers himself fortunate because he is the least recognized of the members of Monty Python's Flying Circus. He is recognized just enough to keep his ego happy, but he realizes how much of a hassle it would be to be recognized everywhere he went. He says, "Thank God I'm not John. It's an awful job to walk down the street and be John Cleese because you can't escape from it!"
***
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***
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Netflix Cancels Revival
Mystery Science Theater 3000
Netflix will not produce a third season of its Mystery Science Theater 3000 revival, according to a series of tweets from the show's star, Jonah Ray Rodrigues.
This is the fourth time in the series' history that it has been canceled in one way or another. Fans have repeatedly rallied to bring it back on new networks or, in some cases, in totally new formats and spinoffs like RiffTrax. Also on Twitter, MST3K creator Joel Hodgson said, "It's not the end of MST3K, It's just the end of the first chapter of bringing back MST3K."
The most recent revival started with a massively successful crowdfunding campaign before Netflix picked the series up. The first new season (season 11 in the grand scheme of the show) was released to critical acclaim, and it brought in some old series fans and attracted newcomers with a new cast that included Felicia Day and Patton Oswalt, among others. However, statements by Hodgson and others involved in the show indicated that Netflix was displeased that users weren't binge-watching it in the same way that they do a show like Stranger Things or House of Cards.
The ill-advised answer was to bill the second new season as "The Gauntlet," with a weak narrative framing suggesting that viewers should watch all of its 90-minute episodes in one sitting. Most fans of the series would acknowledge that this sort of bingeing is not really a fit for the show, despite a tradition of the most dedicated fans marathoning it on Thanksgiving. The Gauntlet does not seem to have worked to Netflix's satisfaction.
Mystery Science Theater 3000
Left Script Under Bed
John Boyega
British actor John Boyega said on Wednesday that he left his copy of the closely-guarded script for the new "Star Wars" movie under his bed, and that it ended up for sale on eBay.
Boyega, who plays Stormtrooper turned resistance fighter Finn in "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker," told U.S. television show "Good Morning America" that a cleaner had found the script and put it on the eBay auction site.
Director J.J. Abrams said earlier this week that the team behind the film spotted the eBay listing and was able to get it back before it was sold, meaning the secrets in the plot are still safe.
Scripts for "Star Wars" movies are among the most closely guarded in the film world. Many actors only get the parts of the script for their specific scenes and critics do not get to see the film in advance.
Boyega said that even he did not know the ending of the film, which concludes the Skywalker saga first brought to life in the 1977 original.
John Boyega
Denounces Apple
Ukraine
Ukraine said on Wednesday Apple did not "give a damn" about its pain, after the U.S. tech giant began referring to the Russian-annexed Crimean peninsula as part of Russia in its Maps and Weather apps for Russian users.
Russia and Ukraine have both been highly sensitive to the way global companies identify Crimea, since Russian troops seized the territory and Moscow annexed it after a referendum that Kiev and its Western allies say was illegal.
Apple appeared to have changed the way it displays locations in Crimea in its software, in a nod to Russian politicians who have demanded the peninsula be referred to as part of Russia.
Reuters reporters in Moscow who typed the name of the Crimean provincial capital Simferopol into Apple's Maps and Weather apps on Wednesday saw it displayed as "Simferopol, Crimea, Russia". Users elsewhere -- including in Ukraine's capital Kiev and in Crimea itself -- see locations in Crimea displayed without specifying which country they belong to.
Ukraine
Computers 'Cannot Be Defeated'
Go Grandmaster
The only human ever to beat Google's computer algorithm at the ancient Chinese strategy game Go decided to retire because he is convinced machines "cannot be defeated", a report said Wednesday.
South Korean Lee Se-Dol's five-match showdown with Google's artificial intelligence program AlphaGo in 2016 raised both the game's profile and fears of computer intelligence's seemingly limitless learning capability.
The 18-time world Go champion lost all but one encounter in the series, but remains the only person to have won a game against AlphaGo.
The machines have since developed much further -- an updated self-teaching version of the algorithm beat its predecessor 100 games to none.
Go originated in China 3,000 years ago and has been played for centuries -- mostly in China, Japan and South Korea.
Go Grandmaster
U.S. Planned To Separate
26,000 Migrant Families
The Trump administration planned to separate tens of thousands of migrant children from their parents in the span of five months before it was forced to end its "zero tolerance" crackdown along the southern border due to public outcry and a court ruling.
In early May of 2018, the month when the administration began implementing the "zero tolerance" policy across the U.S.-Mexico border, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) told the White House budget office that it expected its officers to separate more than 26,000 families by September of that year, according to a report released by the Department of Homeland Security's Inspector General on Wednesday.
The revelation represents the first official estimate of the number of families the administration was prepared and willing to separate as part of the controversial policy designed to deter U.S.-bound migrants. It also suggests that U.S. officials were committed to the large-scale implementation of the practice before President Trump signed an executive order halting it and a federal judge ordered the administration to discontinue the policy and reunify most separated families.
"This report pulls back the curtain on the Administration's cruelty, incompetence, and indifference to the suffering of children who were taken from their parents under President Trump's child separation policy," New York Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, the Democratic chair of the House Oversight Committee, said in a statement.
Although some detained migrant families were separated under previous administrations - mostly when officials determined the parents posed a danger to their children - the Trump administration policy involved the prosecution of all border-crossing parents for illegal entry, to systematically separate thousands of families.
26,000 Migrant Families
'A Cruel And Unnecessary Scam'
Fake University
Around 90 more foreign students have been arrested as a part of a sting by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which reportedly set up a fake university in Detroit that lured mostly Indian students in before revealing itself as fake.
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement has reportedly arrested around 250 students since January as a part of the sting, which included the establishment of a pretend university that was apparently listed on the DHS website as legitimate. An ICE spokesperson said that the arrests all occurred between January and July of this year.
Attorneys for the students say that an American accreditation service also claimed the university was legitimate before it was revealed to be staffed by federal agents. The students reportedly came to the US legally on student visas before the sham was disclosed, according to the Detroit Free Press.
Many of the students have now been deported to India, while others are contesting their removal orders. At least one has reportedly been granted lawful permanent resident status by an immigration judge.
The school also reportedly made a good amount of money from the students, with an email from the university president notifying them that tuition cost $2,500 a quarter, or about $1,000 a month.
Fake University
Spent On Golf Trips
$115 Million
With his Thanksgiving vacation, President Donald Trump (R-Shameless)'s golf hobby has now cost Americans an estimated $115 million in travel and security expenses ? the equivalent of 287 years of the presidential salary he frequently boasts about not taking.
Of that amount, many hundreds of thousands - perhaps millions - of dollars have gone into his own cash registers, as Secret Service agents, White House staff and other administration officials stay and eat at his hotels and golf courses.
The exact amount cannot be determined because the White House refuses to reveal how many Trump aides have been staying at his properties when he visits them and will not turn over receipts for the charges incurred.
But lawsuits filed by news organizations and watchdog groups against other executive branch agencies - the White House is exempt from Freedom of Information Act queries - have revealed payments totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars, arguably in violation of the Constitution's domestic emoluments clause, which prohibits Trump from accepting benefits beyond his salary from the federal or any state government.
The group Property of the People recently revealed payments totaling $254,021 from the Secret Service to various Trump properties in just the first five months of his presidential tenure. Over that period, Trump had golfed 25 times. As of Wednesday, he has spent 223 days at a golf course he owns. If the first five months are an accurate indicator, that means the Secret Service has likely spent nearly $2.3 million in taxpayer money at Trump's businesses, of which he is the sole owner.
$115 Million
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