from Bruce
Anecdotes
Husbands and Wives
• On 29 September 2003, in Trinidad, Dale Ramnanan and his girlfriend, Lystra Ramkissoon, were accosted by bandits who tried to kidnap Lystra. Dale battled the bandits and rescued her. Two years later, they married. Dale said, “Our love grew. We became more attached. How could I marry someone else after that?” Lystra said, “I married my hero.”
Dale works as a chef at Imperial Garden Restaurant at Grand Bazaar, Trinidad, in the Caribbean, and at the time of the attack Lystra was a cashier there. Dale said, “We had just finished work around 10 p.m. and [were] waiting for transportation on the highway. It was hard getting a taxi. I wanted to drop Lystra home. A car pulled up. I sensed something was wrong even then, even as I was getting into the car. We sat in the back seat, I in the middle, a man on one side. We were driving along the highway and I watching these three guys, saying something wrong here. Suddenly, the guy in the front seat nod his head to the man in the back and push back his seat, pinning Lystra, and put a knife by her throat. The man next to me put a knife to my head and push my head between my legs.” The car stopped at Carlsen Field, a farming community.
Dale said, “The man next to me come out the car and drag me out. He say, ‘Run, boy, or I will kill you.’ But I was just coming at him. His knife was long, and he was running into me and I was stepping back. I didn’t want them to go with Lystra.” The car started driving off, and the bandit jumped in the car. Dale said, “I tell myself I not giving her up. I ran to Lystra’s side of the car. The [window] glass was halfway down. The car was speeding. I hold on to the door post and lock myself to the car. I was bumping off the road, so I climb a little higher, and put my hand in trying to open the lock, and the men only stabbing me on my arm to let go.”
Lystra said, “I was just whispering my prayers for the entire thing. When they stop the car and take out Dale, I see him coming back for me and dive on the car. I could see him trying to get the lock open. I heard this voice saying, ‘Lystra, open the door and jump.’” She did exactly that. After Lystra jumped out of the car, Dale also let go of the car door. Dale said, “As I hit the road, I got up. My little finger mash up but I ran to her. We started running, then she tell me her foot break, so we dive in the bush. The car stop and then the men ride out.”
Lystra’s foot was badly broken — bone protruded from her flesh. Dale said, “I couldn’t believe she run. She was bawling in pain, and I was trying to push the bone back in. When the car gone, I put her on my back and continued the journey.” They came to a house, and the residents allowed them to call for help. Dale and Lystra invited them to their wedding. Lystra has a permanent limp, and Dale has knife scars on his arms, but he said, “I would do it all over again if I had to.”
“One person, other than Lystra, who is proud of Dale is his father, Narais Ramnanan, who said, “What my boy did was very brave to stand up to them and defend his girlfriend. It was love in his heart. They [the criminals] pushed him out of the car, but he did not run. Love brought him back to rescue her.”
***
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Presenting
Michael Egan
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION
BANDCAMP MUSIC
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION OF BANDCAMP MUSIC
Music: "Blues My Naughty Sweetie Gives Me"
Album: BYWATER DANCE
Artist: Mary Flower
Artist Location: Portland, Oregon
Record Company: Yellow Dog Records
Record Company Location: Memphis, Tennessee
Info:
“Yellow Dog Records carries the living lore of authentic American music into the present. Featuring new interpretations of Blues, Jazz, Soul, and Americana styles by established and emerging artists, Yellow Dog Records is where innovation confronts tradition. What's left after the collision? Inspired explorations of America's musical roots.”
Price: $1 (USD) for track; $8 (USD) for 14-track album
Genre: Roots. Blues.
Links:
BYWATER DANCE
Mary Flower on Bandcamp
Yellow Dog Records
Other Links:
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David Bruce's Amazon Author Page
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David Bruce's Blog #1
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Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Stephen Suggests
Threefer
New Venture
Michael Egan
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION
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Other Links:
David Bruce's Amazon Author Page
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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
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Current Events
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‘Snoop on the Stoop’ Elves
Snoop Dogg
Uncle Snoop is letting people know not to mess with his name. The West Coast rap legend has moved to take legal action against the creators of a 2021 holiday sensation that has swept the Internet.
According to the New York Post, the “Gin and Juice” rapper is suing the company behind Snoop on the Stoop, an unauthorized hip-hop version of the Elf on the Shelf franchise.
Instead of a whimsical white elf, made famous from the 2005 children’s book, this doll is made in the image and likeness of Snoop Dogg, whose real name is Calvin Broadus.
The doll currently sold by multiple online retailers, who have all put their spinoff on the doll, has the rapper smoking a blunt, sporting his ’90s signature braids with jingle bells on the bottom (instead of bobos), shades, and a green elf suit.
The 50-year-old rapper took to social media to distance himself from the products.
Snoop Dogg
2022
Public Domain
A deluge of creative works will enter the public domain on Jan. 1. According to US copyright law, anyone will be able to republish or adapt any work published on or before 1926 without needing to pay the author’s estate or even seek their permission.
Jennifer Jenkins, director of Duke University’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain, describes 2022 as “a blockbuster of a year” for public domain enthusiasts. The intellectual law professor has been tracking artistic works entering the public realm and publishes an analysis every December. “It’s like unwrapping hundreds of extra presents during the holidays,” Jenkins writes in an email to Quartz. “Not only do I get to explore all of these incredible works from the past, I get to imagine what creativity they might inspire in the future.”
This year’s bounty includes seminal books like A. A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh, Felix Salten’s Bambi, A Life in the Woods, and debut novels by Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner. Dorothy Parker and Langston Hughes’s first compendium of poems also enter in the public domain this year.
In addition, 400,000 sound recordings made before 1923 are also made available to new creators. In the US, a musical composition is treated separately from a recording of a performance. The US granted its first copyrights for sound recordings in 1972, while lyrics and scores have been protected since 1831. A 2018 bill called the “Music Modernization Act” specified a schedule for older recordings to gradually enter the public domain, with the first batch being released in 2022.
Jenkins is closely watching if the Walt Disney Corporation, which owns the billion-dollar Winnie the Pooh franchise, will attempt to block independent creators from adapting the fictional bear in new works. With the exception of the character Tigger, who first appears in Milne’s 1928 book The House at Pooh Corner, the plot, dialogue, and characters from the 1926 story as well as E.H. Shepard’s accompanying line drawings are free to use. This could mean updated tales about Pooh, Christopher Robin, Piglet, and Eeyore, or even inventive NFT propositions featuring the original book illustrations.
Public Domain
‘Real Time With Bill Maher’
Season 20
HBO has set a date for the return of Real Time With Bill Maher. The politically-focused late-night talk show will premiere its landmark 20th season on January 21 at 10 PM ET/PT (with a replay at 12:30 AM).
Maher signed a deal with the WarnerMedia-owned premium cable network earlier this year to keep the show on through 2024. Season 20 makes Maher the longest-serving late-night host currently on air.
Maher headlined his first special on the network in 1989 and has starred in eleven solo specials to date, including the hour-long presentations Bill Maher: Live From Oklahoma, Bill Maher: Live from D.C., Bill Maher… But I’m Not Wrong, Emmy-nominated The Decider and I’m Swiss, Victory Begins at Home, Be More Cynical, The Golden Goose Special and Stuff That Struck Me Funny, and two half-hour stand-up specials, plus the specials 30 Seconds Over Washington and Comic Relief VI.
Real Time With Bill Maher is executive produced by Maher, Sheila Griffiths, Marc Gurvitz, Dean Johnsen, and Billy Martin. Chris Kelly is co-executive producer. Matt Wood is producer and director is Paul Casey.
Season 20
Sales Soared In 2021
Vinyl
Albums by Adele, Abba and Ed Sheeran helped vinyl sales in the UK top five million for the first time since 1991.
Almost a quarter of the albums bought this year (23%) were on vinyl, with Abba's Voyage the biggest-seller.
It marks the format's 14th consecutive year of growth, with sales up by 8% on 2020.
Sales of CDs continued to fall. Just 14 million discs were bought - the lowest figure since 1988, four years after the format was introduced in the UK.
Cassette sales, while representing a tiny fraction of the music market, also increased for a ninth consecutive year.
Vinyl
Dershowitz Analyzes Verdict
BBC
After Ghislaine Maxwell was found guilty Wednesday on five of six sex trafficking counts for her role in procuring young girls for her former boyfriend and serial sex offender Jeffrey Epstein to abuse, BBC News took to the airwaves to analyze the proceedings. And they brought on Alan Dershowitz, notably named by Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre as one of the men (she has also claimed Prince Andrew sexually assaulted her) she said Epstein and Maxwell allegedly forced her to have sex with repeatedly when she was underage. Dershowitz has denied the allegations.
Introduced only as a “constitutional lawyer” by the BBC host without any further context or noting any conflict of interest, Dershowitz appeared to use the opportunity to defend his defamation countersuit while questioning Giuffre’s credibility.
“I think the most important thing particularly for British viewers is that the government was very careful who it used as witnesses,” Dershowitz said, alluding to his connection to the case, even though BBC did not. “It did not use as a witness the woman who accused Prince Andrew, accused me, accused many other people because the government didn’t believe she was telling the truth.”
“In fact she, Virginia Giuffre, was mentioned in the trial as somebody who brought young people to Epstein for him to abuse and so this case does nothing at all to strengthen in any way the case against Prince Andrew,” he continued. “Indeed it weakens the case against Prince Andrew considerably because the government was very selective in who it used it used.”
The allegations Giuffre made against Dershowitz were part of Giuffre’s ongoing civil defamation lawsuit.
BBC
Partisan Weasels
Facebook
In the wake of a whistleblower coming forward with allegations against the company, Facebook made an effort to "muddy the waters" in Congress and "divide lawmakers," according to a new report in The Wall Street Journal.
The report details Facebook's response to a whistleblower, former employee Frances Haugen, who came forward in October to allege the company prioritizes profits over user safety. Among the claims included in a series of reports based on the documents Haugen provided was the allegation that Facebook, which has since been renamed Meta, is aware that Instagram is "toxic" for many young users.
After Haugen's claims emerged, Facebook's Washington team alleged to Republican lawmakers and advocacy groups that Haugen "was trying to help Democrats," while the company's lobbyists told Democratic staffers that Republicans "were focused on the company's decision to ban expressions of support for Kyle Rittenhouse," The Wall Street Journal reports. The company's goal, the Journal writes, was to "muddy the waters, divide lawmakers along partisan lines and forestall a cross-party alliance" against Facebook in Congress.
Facebook received scrutiny from Republican and Democratic lawmakers after the whistleblower revelations emerged, with multiple hearings since being held on Capitol Hill. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), for example, alleged the whistleblower documents showed Facebook "knew" its platform "promotes extremism and hurts our communities." A recent congressional hearing in December, though, suggested Haugen's "credibility with Republican lawmakers may be starting to wear thin," Politico wrote.
The Journal also reports that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg "has told employees not to apologize" amid the scrutiny, as well as that officials at Meta have considered hiring a "high-ranking outsider" in an attempt to take "pressure" off both Zuckerberg and Meta Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg. A spokesperson told the Journal, "When our work is being mischaracterized, we're not going to apologize. We're going to defend our record." Read more at The Wall Street Journal.
Facebook
550 New Species
Natural History Museum
The Natural History Museum has described hundreds of new species this year, including carnivorous dinosaurs.
Scientists, researchers and curators at the London museum have discovered 552 different species, ranging from small invertebrates who live in the ocean to prehistoric predators.
The biggest were a pair of carnivorous dinosaurs known as spinosaurs, discovered by PhD student Jeremy Lockwood on the Isle of Wight.
The spinosaurs were among six new dinosaurs described by the museum’s scientists, four of which were found in the UK.
Other discoveries by the museum include brachiopods and arachnids trapped in amber, an ancient herbivorous crocodile relative and two ancient mammals - one being a “Jurassic mouse” from Scotland dating back to around 166 million years ago.
Natural History Museum
‘Nit Glue’
Ancient Human DNA
Scientists say that ancient human DNA found in nit glue, the sticky substance produced by head lice to attach their eggs to hair, could help shed light on longstanding mysteries about what sort of people lived in South America 1,500-2,000 years ago.
The researchers, from the UK, Denmark and Argentina, analysed the remains of eight South American mummies, and extracted both ancient human nuclear DNA and mitochondrial lice DNA from the “nit cement” of two mummies.
The analysis showed the people had been part of a population that migrated from northwest Amazonia to the Andes of central-west Argentina 2,000 years ago or earlier. This confirmed previous theories.
Alejandra Perotti, of the University of Reading, who led the research, published in the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution, said a benefit of the technique was that it avoided damaging or destroying unique ancient bone and teeth specimens.
The scientists said the nit glue yielded as much human DNA as a tooth and twice that in the petrous bone of the skull.
Ancient Human DNA
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