from Bruce
Anecdotes
Education
• Lots of teachers love their jobs. Syndicated columnist Connie Schultz met a teacher who told her about a young boy who lagged far behind his peers in reading. The teacher worked with the boy for months, and finally the boy read out loud an entire page by himself. The teacher said, “I wish you could have seen his face. He put his book on his lap, raised both hands in the air, and shouted, ‘I can read! I can read!’”
• As a young girl, future Secretary of State Madeleine Albright attended the Kent School for Girls in Denver, Colorado, where she once won an 8th-grade contest by listing all 51 member states of the United Nations in alphabetical order. At every school she attended, she started a new club to study foreign policy — she admits that one advantage of starting a new club is that you can name yourself president.
• Four novices made a vow of silence, then they sat meditating around a candle. A gust of air blew out the candle, so the first novice said, “The candle has gone out.” The second novice said, “Be quiet. We’re not supposed to talk.” The third novice said, “Why are you talking?” And the fourth novice said, “I’m the only one who didn’t say anything.”
• After becoming First Lady in 1992, Hillary Rodham Clinton spoke before a group of talented high school students, then asked for questions. The boys waved their hands in the air, but the girls sat quietly with their hands by their sides. Ms. Clinton waited for a while, and then said, “I’m looking for a woman’s hand.”
• Gymnasts tend to be small. When Kurt Thomas was a hall monitor in school, he worked with another boy named Elvis Peacock, who became a star football player at Oklahoma. Mr. Thomas remembers, “If I asked a guy for his pass when Peacock wasn’t around, it was like I wasn’t even there.”
• Frank Carroll coached figure skater Linda Fratianne, whom he called “the perfect student, because she would listen and try to do exactly what she was told. If I asked her to jump off a roof, she would say, ‘This roof? Or that higher roof?’”
• In 1981, elite gymnastics coaches Bela and Marta Karolyi defected from Romania to the United States. Neither knew English, but they learned the language by watching Sesame Street.
Etiquette
• The Barrymores — Lionel, Ethyl, and John — were very formal when they were around each other. This shocked one of their acquaintances, who asked, “My God, don’t you know each other?” By the way, the Barrymores’ father, Maurice, enjoyed drinking to excess, and he once stated, “Staggering is a sign of strength. Weak men are carried home.”
• There is a certain etiquette — and attention to safety — in pairs figure skating. For example, if the man is holding the woman high in the air and something happens so that she falls, proper etiquette requires that the man break her fall by allowing her to fall on top of him rather than directly onto the ice.
• Dame Edith Evans was once asked to play Lady Macbeth, but she declined, saying, “It’s absolutely out of the question. I could never impersonate a woman who had such a peculiar notion of hospitality.”
***
© Copyright Bruce D. Bruce; All Rights Reserved
***
Be a Work of Art — Buy
Be a Work of Art — Buy The Paperback
Be a Work of Art — Buy Kindle
Be a Work of Art — Buy Apple
Be a Work of Art — Buy Barnes and Noble
Be a Work of Art — Buy Kobo
Be a Work of Art — Buy Smashwords: Many Formats, Including PDF
Presenting
Michael Egan
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION
BANDCAMP MUSIC
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION OF BANDCAMP MUSIC
Music: "Politikos Asesinos (Matorralman Remezcla)"
Single: This is a one-sided single
Artist: Matorralman
Artist Location: Mexico
Info:
“Imagine if Duane Eddy met Esquivel. The result would be a combination of the classic deep twangy guitar sound of the 1950s thrown on its head by the king of experimental Mexican lounge tunes. Matorralman is Miguel Rizo, a selector, composer and producer from Mexico City. His debut album is GUATEQUE ESTELAR, a collection of songs that fuse electronic lounge music with surf rock and retro 60s sounds like go go, ye-ye and psychedelia. A tribute to those classic times of science fiction and foxy ladies.” — Amazon
Price: FREE Download
Genre: Instrumental.
Links:
“Politikos Asesinos ( Matorralman Remezcla)”
Matorralman on Bandcamp
Matorralman on YouTube
Other Links:
Bruce’s Music Recommendations: FREE pdfs
David Bruce's Amazon Author Page
David Bruce's Smashwords Page
David Bruce's Blog #1
David Bruce's Blog #2
David Bruce's Blog #3
David Bruce's Apple iBookstore
David Bruce has over 140 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Stephen Suggests
Traitors or Saviors?
New Venture
Michael Egan
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION
Middle Age Riot
Other Links:
David Bruce's Amazon Author Page
David Bruce's Smashwords Page
David Bruce's Blog #1
David Bruce's Blog #2
David Bruce's Blog #3
David Bruce's Apple iBookstore
David Bruce has over 140 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
Reader Comment
Current Events
Linda >^..^<
We are all only temporarily able bodied.
Thanks, Linda!
that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Starting to rain.
Batgirl Movie
Michael Keaton
DC’s cinematic universe is barrelling full speed ahead into a multiverse of movies—and if Warner Bros. has its way, it looks like it might have found itself an answer to the narrative glue that will tie at least some of that multiverse together: Michael Keaton.
As first reported by Cinelinx, a new press kit provided to media by Warner Bros. for its upcoming 2022 slate has confirmed that Michael Keaton is part of the cast of Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah’s Batgirl movie, currently slated to debut exclusively on HBO Max sometime in 2022. Keaton joins the previously confirmed cast members Leslie Grace—playing, of course, titular heroine Barbara Gordon; J.K. Simmons as Barbara’s father, Gotham PD commissioner Jim Gordon; Brendan Fraser as an unknown villain (rumored to be Batman rogue gallery staple Firefly); and Jacob Scipio in a similarly undisclosed role. io9 has reached out to Warner Bros. to clarify Keaton’s addition to the cast, and will update this post as and when we hear back.
Although not directly stated by the press material (it would honestly be pretty hilarious if it was anything but), Keaton is presumably reprising his role as Bruce Wayne and Batman, the role he embodied in 1989's Batman and 1992's Batman Returns, directed by Tim Burton. The actor was already reprising the role in next year’s long awaited Flash movie—alongside fellow Dark Knight Ben Affleck—but bringing him into Batgirl is a step further into tying Keaton’s legacy back directly into the heroes of Gotham City.
It’s unknown at this point what this means for Batgirl itself, whether the movie is set as some kind of continuation of the universe of Batman and Returns, or is its entirely own slice of the DC Comics universe and Keaton’s Batman is just popping in from across space and time. Either way, it’s good to hear that one of the most iconic takes on the Dark Knight is getting a moment in the spotlight again, especially to usher in a new generation of DC movie heroes. We’ll bring you more on Batgirl when we learn it.
Michael Keaton
Fans Upset
'Wheel of Fortune'
On Wheel of Fortune Tuesday night, one contestant was kicking herself after she barely missed out on winning a car over what seemed like a minor technicality to viewers at home.
Charlene Rubush went into the Bonus Round with $16,500. While solving a puzzle under the "What Are You Doing?" category, Rubush first guessed "Choosing the right card." However, it wasn't quite right as the answer involved a different last word, which Rubush eventually guessed, but not after pausing for a few seconds.
"Choosing the right… word," Rubush eventually answered right before the buzzer.
As the buzzer sounded, host Pat Sajak told Rubush, "You know, this one's tough, because you said all the right words, including the word 'word' but, as you know, it's gotta be more or less continuous. We'll allow for a little pause but not four or five seconds. I'm sorry. You did a good job in getting it, but we can't give you the prize, and it was the Audi."
So it seems, had Rubush only paused for less than four or five seconds, maybe she would have also won an Audi Q3. That narrow miss had viewers at home taking to social media with some thoughts.
'Wheel of Fortune'
Risked His Life
Wore A Wire
For nearly 10 years, Joseph Moore lived a secret double life.
At times the U.S. Army veteran donned a white robe and hood as a hit man for the Ku Klux Klan in North Florida. He attended clandestine meetings and participated in cross burnings. He even helped plan the murder of a Black man.
However, Moore wore something else during his years in the klan – a wire for the FBI. He recorded his conversations with his fellow klansmen, sometimes even captured video, and shared what he learned with federal agents trying to crack down on white supremacists in Florida law enforcement.
Before such meetings, he would sit alone in his truck, his diaphragm heaving with the deep breathing techniques he learned as an Army-trained sniper.
The married father of four would help the federal government foil at least two murder plots, according to court records from the criminal trial for two of the klansmen. He was also an active informant when the FBI exposed klan members working as law enforcement officers in Florida at the city, county and state levels.
Wore A Wire
‘Old South’ Restaurant
Georgia
A Georgia city is a big step closer to removing a replica of a well-known restaurant that served Southern staples and lured celebrities but also used racist imagery to evoke the pre-Civil War South.
A task force in the Atlanta suburb of Smyrna recommended last week that Aunt Fanny’s Cabin be put up for demolition unless a group comes forward to remove it from city property, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. Only the cabin’s fireplace and chimney should be preserved as a monument to Fanny Williams, the restaurant’s namesake, the task force said.
The now-defunct restaurant became a popular dining destination starting in the mid-1900s. Its guests included sports icons Jack Dempsey and Ty Cobb and Hollywood star Doris Day. Former President Jimmy Carter stopped at the cabin during his campaigns.
But it also embraced an “Old South” decor and theme that was adopted by other restaurants, the AJC has previously reported.
According to news reports, Black youths hired as servers wore wooden menu boards around their necks and danced on table tops, and the walls had framed advertisements for slaves. Williams sat on the front porch in a faded dress and headwrap telling customers about her days as a slave, though she never was a slave, according to the AJC.
Georgia
Pegasus Spyware
Jamal Khashoggi
Emirates flight attendant Hanan Elatr surrendered her two Android cellphones, laptop and passwords when security agents surrounded her at the Dubai airport. They drove her, blindfolded and in handcuffs, to an interrogation cell on the edge of the city, she said. There, she was questioned all night and into the morning about her fiance, Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
The next day, at 10:14 a.m. on April 22, 2018, while her devices were still in official custody, someone opened the Chrome browser on one of the Androids.
They tapped in the address of a website on the phone's keyboard, fumbling over the tiny keys, making two typos, and then pressed "go," according to a new forensic analysis by cybersecurity expert Bill Marczak of Citizen Lab. The process took 72 seconds.
The website sent the phone a powerful spyware package, known as Pegasus, according to the new analysis.
The new analysis provides the first indication that a UAE government agency placed the military-grade spyware on a phone used by someone in Khashoggi's inner circle in the months before his murder.
Jamal Khashoggi
Last US Slave Ship
Clotilda
Researchers studying the wreckage of the last U.S. slave ship, buried in mud on the Alabama coast since it was scuttled in 1860, have made the surprising discovery that most of the wooden schooner remains intact, including the pen that was used to imprison African captives during the brutal journey across the Atlantic Ocean.
While the upper portion of the two-masted Clotilda is gone, the section below deck where the captured Africans and stockpiles were held is still largely in one piece after being buried for decades in a section of river that hasn't been dredged, said maritime archaeologist James Delgado of the Florida-based SEARCH Inc.
At least two-thirds of the ship remains, and the existence of the unlit and unventilated slave pen, built during the voyage by the addition of a bulkhead where people were held as cargo below the main deck for weeks, raises questions about whether food and water containers, chains and even human DNA could remain in the hull, said Delgado.
“It’s the most intact (slave ship) wreck ever discovered," he said. "It’s because it's sitting in the Mobile-Tensaw Delta with fresh water and in mud that protected it that it's still there.”
The Clotilda was the last ship known to transport African captives to the American South for enslavement. Nearly 90 feet (27 meters) in length, it departed Mobile, Alabama, for an illegal trip to purchase people decades after Congress outlawed such trade in 1808.
Clotilda
Ancient Shipwrecks
Israel
The Israel Antiquities Authority announced Wednesday the discovery of remnants of two shipwrecks off the Mediterranean coast, replete with a sunken trove of hundreds Roman and medieval silver coins.
The finds made near the ancient city of Caesarea were dated to the Roman and Mamluk periods, around 1,700 and 600 years ago, archaeologists said. They include hundreds of Roman silver and bronze coins dating to the mid-third century, as well as more than 500 silver coins from the Middle Ages found amid the sediment.
Among the other artifacts recovered from the site near the ancient city of Caesarea were figurines, bells, ceramics, and metal artifacts that once belonged to the ships, such as nails and a shattered iron anchor.
Robert Kool, head of the authority’s coin department, called the item “exceptional.”
“On the gemstone is engraved an image of the ‘Good Shepherd,’ which is really one of the earliest symbols of Christianity,” he said.
Israel
Mainland North America
Woolly Mammoths
Woolly mammoths may have survived in North America thousands of years longer than scientists previously thought, vials of Alaskan permafrost reveal.
The hairy beasts might have persisted in what is now the Yukon, in Canada, until around 5,000 years ago — 5,000 years longer than experts previously estimated, a new study suggests. That conclusion comes from snippets of mammoth DNA that were found in vials of frozen dirt that had been stored and forgotten in a laboratory freezer for a decade.
"Organisms are constantly shedding cells throughout their life," said study lead author Tyler Murchie, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Anthropology at McMaster University in Ontario. For instance, He explained thata person sheds roughly 40,000 skin cells per hour, on average, meaning we are constantly ejecting bits of our DNA into our surroundings.
That's also true of other life-forms; nonhuman animals, plants, fungi, and microbes are constantly leaving microscopic breadcrumb trails everywhere. Most of this genetic detritus doesn't linger in the environment, though. Soon after being discarded, the vast majority of the DNA bits are consumed by microbes, Murchie said. The fraction of the shed DNA that does remain might bind to a small bit of mineral sediment and be preserved. Though only a tiny proportion of what was initially shed remains centuries later, it can nevertheless provide a window into a vanished world teeming with strange creatures.
Murchie analyzed soil samples taken from permafrost in the central Yukon. Many of the samples dated to the Pleistocene-Holocene transition (14,000-11,000 years ago), a period marked by rapidly changingclimatic conditions in which many large mammals — such as saber-toothedicats, mammoths and mastodons — vanished from the fossil record.
Woolly Mammoths
| CURRENT MOON lunar phases |
