Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Garrison Keillor: One more week, its little successes, etc.
It's a father's duty to take at least one long trip with each of his children, the two of you, nobody else along, and now that my daughter and I have traveled by rail, the old 20th Century Limited route from Chicago to New York, the trip Cary Grant took with Eva Marie Saint in North By Northwest, we are ready to take another. Nineteen hours from Chicago's magnificent Union Station to Manhattan's wretched Penn Station, including a fast run along the Mohawk and Hudson rivers, and the bond between young woman and her old man is sealed solid.
Molly Langmuir: Donald Trump Is Destroying My Marriage (NY Mag)
"Shortly after the election is when I became aware of it," says Lois Brenner, a New York-based divorce attorney. "People were thinking about splitting up their marriages because of political differences." She'd never encountered this before, but she's since found herself litigating two such divorces. "After people got over their shock," she says, "they started arguing."
Paul Waldman: Down with centrism (Washington Post)
"Centrists," whether pundits or advocates or well-heeled funders, often portray themselves as the only sensible people in politics, the ones who are rational and reasonable, their views distorted by neither dogma nor mindless partisanship. But this is a myth. The centrists are often the most cynical operators around.
Greg Sargent: Trump's rage-tweets and spin over General Motors layoffs ring hollow (Washington Post)
It is largely true that Trump himself is not directly responsible for the layoffs, which will impact 14,000 workers in Ohio, Michigan, Maryland and Canada, and reflect complicated decisions that appear rooted in lagging sales. But the problem for Trump, as Steve Benen points out, is that Trump has constantly asserted that such industrial job losses won't occur on his watch. In 2017, for instance, Trump held an event in Ohio not far from one of the GM plants that is closing, and boasted: "They're all coming back. Don't move, don't sell your house."
Paul Waldman: It looks like a big day for collusion. No wonder Trump is raging. (Washington Post)
That Manafort would lie to prosecutors after signing an agreement with them is not exactly surprising. This is someone who spent a career somersaulting across every imaginable ethical and legal line; he even allegedly engaged in witness tampering while under house arrest as he awaited trial. But even if Mueller is right that Manafort has been lying to him, we don't yet know what about. It could have nothing to do with Trump. But if it does, and if Trump made the same assertions in his written answers that Manafort made, and if Mueller has evidence disproving those assertions, it would mean Trump committed perjury and perhaps obstruction of justice as well.
Greg Sargent: Trump's war on facts is getting worse. But the new Democratic House majority can fight back. (Washington Post)
Democrats take over the House of Representatives in January. Can they use their new majority to counter, or at least push back on, one of the most destructive aspects of Donald Trump's presidency - that is, his ceaseless war on facts, science, and reality? This question is thrust upon us by new indications that this war is growing more damaging. We're seeing this in two big stories of the moment - the Trump administration's new conclusion that climate change is accelerating, and President Trump's unhinged handling of the crisis at the border.
Jonathan Chait: Trump Does Not Understand What 'Special Counsel' Means (NY Mag)
The reason his job is called "special counsel" is not that Mueller is just considered a special person and the Justice Department wants him to feel good. It's that he is tasked with the special role of investigating Russian interference in the election. He does not have the job of investigating all the famous politicians on television.
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Presenting
Michael Egan
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
from Bruce
Anecdotes
Children's book author Tomie dePaola eagerly looked forward to seeing the Walt Disney movie Snow White and Seven Dwarfs when it came out in 1938, but he was surprised that the movie didn't follow the true version - that is, the version he knew - of the fairy tale. In the movie, the Evil Queen gave Snow White the poisoned apple without first pulling Snow White's laces so tight that she couldn't breathe or giving her a poisoned comb - both times, the dwarfs rescued her. This was so upsetting to Tomie that he yelled at the movie screen, "Where are the laces? Where is the comb?" In addition, he was so upset at the end of the movie - it stopped before the true ending - that he yelled at the screen again, "The story's not over yet. Where's the wedding?" Where're the red-hot iron shoes that they put on the Evil Queen so that she dances herself to death?" His mother ran in from the lobby, where she had taken his younger brother when he became frightened during a scary scene, and dragged him out of the theater. Tomie saw the movie again with a little girl from the neighborhood, but he warned her in advance that Mr. Disney didn't know the true story of Snow White.
If you ever want to make a comedian angry, here's an excellent way to do it. Buddy Hackett almost had a role in Martin Scorsese's excellent movie Goodfellas. Mr. Scorsese even came over to Buddy's house and explained Buddy's role in the movie - he would be in the background telling part of a joke. Buddy walked over to a window, then invited Mr. Scorsese to come over and look at the view. Buddy asked him, "Isn't that a beautiful lawn?" Mr. Scorsese agreed that it was a beautiful lawn. Buddy then told him, "Take a real good look because you will never be back in this house again. Part of a joke! Get the f- outta here!"
In 1952, Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy starred in Pat and Mike, about a woman athlete. The script called for Ms. Hepburn's character to win against several famous women athletes who made cameo appearances in the movie, including golfer Betty Hicks and tennis players Alice Marble and Gussie Moran. However, one part of the script had to be rewritten. Golfer Babe Zaharias was too proud to come in second to Ms. Hepburn's character, and in the movie, Babe wins the tournament by one stroke.
While making his very first movie, in the days in which sound equipment was unsophisticated, ventriloquist Edgar Bergen ran into a problem trying to get the sound of the voice of Charlie McCarthy, his dummy, onto the movie soundtrack. Eventually, the source of the problem was discovered to be a soundman who moved the microphone over to Charlie McCarthy whenever the dummy had a line.
W.C. Fields wrote the screenplays of many of the movies he appeared in, using such pseudonyms as Mahatma Kane Jeeves or Otis Cribblecoblis. He gave one of his movies the title Never Give a Sucker an Even Break, hoping that movie marquees would advertise it as "W.C. Fields - Sucker."
People often wish to see bad movies instead of good movies. A person once asked movie critic Roger Ebert for his opinion of Ingmar Bergman's Cries and Whispers, and he told her, "I think it's the year's best film." "Oh," she replied, "that doesn't sound like anything we'd like to see."
Dr. Seuss tried to make a film version of The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T, but unfortunately the child actors were paid their money directly instead of giving the money to their parents. The children took the money, then ate hot dogs until they vomited.
Making an independent film can be a low-budget experience. While filming the B horror movie Evil Dead, actor Bruce Campbell once thought about buying a pack of gum, then realized that he didn't have the money to pay for it.
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Reader Comment
Current Events
This video shows what Republican Jesus would say and do:
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
REPUBLICANS ARE IDIOTS.
THE WORM TURNS.
'SMIRKY AND JERKY'
WAVE GOODBYE?
'I CHANGED MY MIND BECAUSE I'M PISSED'
'
MUELLER IS MOVING VERY QUICKLY.'
"IT'S JUST A FREAKY THING."
TRUMP IS USING WILDFIRES TO BOOST LOGGING.
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Rainy night.
Readying 'Handmaid's Tale' Sequel
Margaret Atwood
Margaret Atwood has confirmed that she is writing a sequel to "The Handmaid's Tale" that is slated to be published in next September.
Called "The Testaments," the book will be set 15 years after the end of the first book, the author revealed via Twitter, and will be narrated by three female characters.
Atwood's UK publisher, Penguin, reminds readers of what happens at the end of book one and what, therefore, the sequel might have in store, saying of the sequel, "It's set 15 years after Offred's final scene, the moment when the van door slams and she is about to be driven off to an uncertain future -- one either of freedom, more torture and imprisonment, or even death. We just don't know."
Margaret Atwood said about the book, "Dear Readers: Everything you've ever asked me about Gilead and its inner workings is the inspiration for this book. Well, almost everything! The other inspiration is the world we've been living in."
"The Testaments" will be published worldwide on September 10, 2019.
Margaret Atwood
'Lost Out On A Job'
'Arrested Development'
Thomas Sadoski made headlines in May when he took to Instagram to defend actress Jessica Walter after she confronted her Arrested Development co-star Jeffrey Tambor,who she said verbally harassed her on the set of their Netflix show. Now that same post is resurfacing after Sadoski's wife, Amanda Seyfried, revealed that he actually "lost out on a job" because of it.
The Life in Pieces actor posted a selfie with Walter following a New York Times interviewin which she confronted her onscreen husband for lashing out at her in a way that she had never been yelled at "in like almost 60 years of working." The conversation followed Tambor's firing from Transparent after he was accused of sexual harassment by two of his co-stars, leading Walter to concede, "I have to let go of being angry at him. He never crossed the line on our show, with any, you know, sexual whatever."
The confrontation stirred up animosity among the cast that played out during the interview. The dialogue even put castmate Jason Bateman in hot water for seemingly defending Tambor when he said, "Not to belittle it or excuse it or anything, but in the entertainment industry it is incredibly common to have people who are, in quotes, 'difficult.'" Bateman later apologized.
Still, Sadoski's post seemed to address that defense directly, which has since put him at a disadvantage in the industry. And Seyfried isn't the only person to speak out about it.
Olivia Munn also took to Instagram to publicize her support of Sadoski by referencing "his dedication to standing up for what's right even if it comes at a cost."
'Arrested Development'
Defends Mongols MC In Federal Court
Jesse Ventura
Former Minnesota governor and retired pro wrestler Jesse Ventura testified in a Santa Ana courtroom Wednesday about his longstanding membership in the Mongols Motorcycle Club, defending the organization against government allegations that it has operated as a criminal enterprise.
Ventura, the highest profile member of the Mongols, took the stand as an expert witness in the midst of an ongoing federal racketeering trial in which prosecutors are attempting to gain control over the motorcycle club's trademark name, a move that would allow law enforcement to bar the bikers from wearing the patches that adorn their vests.
"Are you a member of the Mongols Motorcycle Club," Attorney Joseph Yanny, who is representing the Mongols, asked Ventura at the beginning of his testimony. "Yes I am," replied Ventura, who later explained that he is currently an inactive member of the Mongols. "Are you member of a gang?" Yanny asked. "No," Ventura responded. "Gangs generally don't broadcast who they are."
Ventura said he joined the Mongols in 1973, shortly after returning from his second tour in Vietnam. The former governor testified that he was still an active duty member of the U.S. Navy when he became a "full-patch" member of the Mongols, recalling putting on his club vest as he left the base.
"It was a stepping stone I needed to make the transition from military life back to civilian life," Ventura said. "I owe them for being there for me when the rest of the world wasn't."
Jesse Ventura
Winter Comedy Schedule
CBS
CBS is using a different approach to unveiling its winter scheduling plans this year - by genre. After announcing its midseason unscripted slate yesterday, the network today is focusing on comedy.
Coming off the schedule in January/February are freshmen Murphy Brown and Happy Together; coming on are new comedy Fam and returning Man With a Plan.
CBS so far has given a Back 9 pickup for a full-season order to one new fall comedy, The Neighborhood. Like all current broadcast sitcom reboots, Murphy Brown was designed for a limited run and will wrap its freshman run with 13 episodes. Its ratings delivery has been somewhat disappointing; in success, CBS likely would've looked for ways to extend the season.
For Happy Together, starring Damon Wayans Jr., CBS has opted not to order additional episodes beyond the original 13. Per CBS' standard MO the past few years, the comedy is not canceled and will remain in contention for next season.
The odds of a freshman series getting a renewal after failing to secure a back order are usually pretty slim though there are some extraneous circumstances to consider. While Happy Together has underperformed in the ratings, it stars a sought-after comedy talent in Wayans Jr. and comes from Late Late Show producer Fulwell 73. What's more, because of co-lead Amber Stevens West's pregnancy, the series rushed production on the first six episodes. In the most recent Episodes 7 and 8, ratings have gone up, with the eighth episode logging the comedy's best Live+same day total viewer and adults 18-49 numbers since Episode 3.
CBS
24 Percent
CO2 Emissions
Last week, the US Geological Survey (USGS) released a report (PDF) concluding that fossil fuels extracted from public lands account for 23.7 percent of the nation's carbon dioxide emissions. Those numbers include carbon dioxide that's released during the drilling and coal mining process, as well as carbon dioxide that's released when the oil, gas, or coal that comes from public lands is processed and burned.
Drilling and mining in the US can occur on private land, or fossil fuel companies can seek leases from the federal government to drill and mine. Offshore oil drilling, a contentious topic among coastal states that are reluctant to see another Deepwater Horizon disaster ruin their beachfront property, counts as drilling on federal land.
The significance of the role that federal land leases play in contributing to climate change will likely be ignored by the Trump administration. Last week, the US federal government tried to bury a report on the dire effects that climate change will have on the nation's economy and health.
This newly released USGS report was requested by the Obama administration in January 2016. At the time, the federal government tried to limit fossil fuel extraction on federal lands in several ways. The Hill notes that the Obama administration created a number of new national monuments to preclude drilling operations. The former president also halted new coal leases on federal lands and instituted new rules to limit methane emissions on federal land.
CO2 Emissions
Drug-Resistant Bacteria
Space Toilets
Cleaning a toilet in space is no more fun than cleaning one on Earth, but it can lead to more interesting surprises. Case in point: NASA scientists have discovered four previously unknown strains of antibiotic-resistant bacteria lurking in the loos aboard the International Space Station (ISS).
In a new study published Nov. 23 in the journal BMC Microbiology, a team led by scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California analyzed several bacterial samples collected from around the ISS in 2015. That included four samples from the lavatory's waste and hygiene compartment. In these four space-toilet samples, plus one sample taken from the foot platform of a piece of resistance-training exercise equipment, the researchers identified five previously unknown strains of Enterobacter bacteria - a genus with high resistance to antibiotics that often infects hospital patients who have compromised immune systems.
"To show which species of the bacteria were present on the ISS, we used various methods to characterize their genomes in detail," study co-author Kasthuri Venkateswaran, a senior research scientist at the JPL Biotechnology and Planetary Protection Group, said in a statement. "We revealed that genomes of the five ISS Enterobacter strains were genetically most similar to three strains newly found on Earth."
The team compared the DNA of the newfound ISS bacteria to that of more than 1,200 Enterobacter strains previously collected on Earth. The researchersy concluded that the newfound strains most closely resemble the species Enterobacter bugandensis. This type of bacteria was recently discovered in three hospitals on Earth (in Africa, Washington state and Colorado), where it showed an ability to cause disease in humans and to resist multiple antibiotics.
"It is important to understand that the strains found on the ISS were not virulent, which means they are not an active threat to human health, but [still] something to be monitored," lead study author Nitin Singh, also from JPL's Biotechnology and Planetary Protection Group, said in the statement.
Space Toilets
Suggests Use Of Complex Astronomy
Cave Art
Some of the world's oldest cave paintings have revealed how ancient people had relatively advanced knowledge of astronomy.
The artworks, at sites across Europe, are not simply depictions of wild animals, as was previously thought. Instead, the animal symbols represent star constellations in the night sky, and are used to represent dates and mark events such as comet strikes, analysis suggests.
They reveal that, perhaps as far back as 40,000 years ago, humans kept track of time using knowledge of how the position of the stars slowly changes over thousands of years.
The findings suggest that ancient people understood an effect caused by the gradual shift of Earth's rotational axis. Discovery of this phenomenon, called precession of the equinoxes, was previously credited to the ancient Greeks.
Around the time that Neanderthals became extinct, and perhaps before humankind settled in Western Europe, people could define dates to within 250 years, the study shows.
Cave Art
Measures Changes in Spacetime Itself
Atomic Clocks
Physicists have created atomic clocks so precise that they can measure deformations in spacetime itself, according to new research.
We don't all experience time passing equally-time passes more slowly closer to something massive's gravitational pull, as famously theorized by Albert Einstein. And since gravity is typically interpreted as the way mass warps space itself, that means a precise-enough atomic clock could serve as a scientific tool for measuring how objects change the shape of their surrounding space.
"We've reported measurements of two clocks that in principle exceed our ability to account for [this effect] across the surface of the Earth," Andrew Ludlow, physicist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder, Colorado, told Gizmodo.
Clocks are merely tools that measure how time passes by counting a repeating thing, be it a swinging pendulum or a vibrating atom. Optical lattice clocks, like the ones used in this study, work the same way-but not quite so simply.
Scientists first use lasers to set up an atom-trapping field, shaped like a row of cups. Thousands of ytterbium atoms populate each of the cups. If struck with a laser of exactly the right frequency, the electrons will jump between two energy levels, an incredibly large (nearly a quadrillion) but exact number of times per second. Once the laser is tuned to the perfect frequency to begin this oscillation, it passes to another component, called an optical frequency comb. This essentially serves as the gears of the clock, translating the laser light into a signal that can be used in electronics to create the tick.
Atomic Clocks
Prime-Time Nielsens
Ratings
Prime-time viewership numbers compiled by Nielsen for Nov. 19-25. Listings include the week's ranking and viewership.
1. "NFL Post-Game Show," Fox, 23.36 million.
2. NFL Football: Atlanta at New Orleans, NBC, 21.73 million.
3. NFL Football: Green Bay at Minnesota, NBC, 20.44 million.
4. NFL Football: Kansas City at L.A. Rams, ESPN, 16.89 million.
5. "NFL Pre-Game Show" (Thursday), NBC, 15.33 million.
6. "NFL Pre-Game Show" (Sunday), NBC, 14.17 million.
7. "60 Minutes," CBS, 12.96 million.
8. "NCIS," CBS, 11.95 million.
9. "Football Night in America," NBC, 10.71 million.
10. "NFL Pre-Game Show, Part 2" (Thursday), NBC, 9.6 million.
11. "FBI," CBS, 8.92 million.
12. "The Voice" (Tuesday), NBC, 8.23 million.
13. "God Friended Me," CBS, 8.09 million.
14. "This is Us," NBC, 7.92 million.
15. "The Voice" (Monday), NBC, 7.884 million.
16. "Dancing With the Stars," ABC, 7.883 million.
17. College Football: Notre Dame at USC, ABC, 7.74 million.
18. "NCIS: New Orleans," CBS, 7.47 million.
19. "Football Night in America, Part 2," NBC, 7.32 million.
20. "NCIS: Los Angeles," CBS, 7.2 million.
Ratings
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