from Bruce
Anecdotes
Money
• Nemanja Petrovic, a 42-year-old beggar from Serbia, got tired of being ignored by passersby, so he threw his cap and shoes down on the street, wrote a sign that said, “Invisible Beggar,” and then left for a while. When he got back, he got a nice surprise: “When I returned, I was astonished to find a crowd and my cap was full of money. Now I just put down the sign, a pair of shoes as a prop, and wait for the donations to roll in while I have a coffee over the road.”
• In 1942, professional golfer Sam Snead played two holes barefoot at the Masters in Augusta in order to help golf writer (and his personal manager) Fred Corcoran win a bet with his fellow sportswriters. (Mr. Snead birdied both holes!) By the way, Mr. Snead once paid out $2,000 in order to play in the British Open. He won the tournament — and earned $600.
• Caroline Gall was a veterinarian who made a good salary, something that made many women envious of her in the 1970s. She once said, “If they would just go ahead and do something instead of bitching all the time. I run into housewives who will say, ‘I wanted to be a vet, but I can’t stand chemistry.’ Well, I can’t stand chemistry either, but I learned it.” (This anecdote is applicable to many men as well.)
• Before Ulysses S. Grant rose to a position of prominence, the union soldiers in the Civil War suffered from poor generalship. One day, President Abraham Lincoln learned that a Union brigadier general and 12 mules had been captured by Confederate soldiers. President Lincoln remarked, “How unfortunate! Those mules cost $200 apiece.”
• An editorial in Variety once stated that the Marx Brothers could make $20,000 a week if they would work together again. Groucho wrote (what I hope is a minority opinion) Variety, “Apparently you are under the impression that the only thing that matters in this world is money. That is quite true.”
Mothers
• Tipper Gore was out driving with her daughters when they saw a dirty homeless woman muttering to herself on a street corner. Her daughters asked if they could take the homeless woman home with them, but Tipper gave reasons why they couldn’t, then she and her daughters started to do volunteer work to help the homeless and to help the mentally ill. By the way, Tipper was named Mary Elizabeth Aitcheson at birth, but she received the nickname “Tipper” from a lullaby that her mother used to sing to her. Also by the way, Al Gore decided to become a politician in 1976. He was so nervous on the day that he announced his candidacy to become a representative from Tennessee that he vomited in a men’s room.
• Frith Banbury rapidly became a leading actor because of his mother, who was hard of hearing. When Mr. Banbury first started as an actor, he had small roles, but his mother, of course, attended his performances. Being hard of hearing, she cupped her ear and leaned forward whenever her son was on stage. Other audience members noticed this, and they paid special attention to her son, thinking that he must have important dialogue to impart. The play VIPs noticed the audience paying special attention to Mr. Banbury, and they rapidly made him a star.
Names
• In some parts of the world, girls are not prized as highly as boys. For example, in India, girls are sometimes unwanted because providing dowries and paying for weddings for them is very expensive. Boys, on the other hand, are valued because when they get married, they receive a dowry and bring money into the family. In India, many girls have been given the names “Nakusa” or “Nakushi.” In Hindi, these names mean “Unwanted.” In October 2011, hundreds of girls in central India attended a renaming ceremony in which they shed their unwanted names and instead chose new names for themselves. Their new, self-chosen names include “Aishwarya” after a Bollywood star; “Savitri” after a Hindi goddess; and “Vaishali,” which in Hindi means “prosperous, beautiful, and good.” A 15-year-old girl who had shed her old name of “Nakusa” for her new name of “Ashmita,” which in Hindi means “very tough,” said, “Now in school, my classmates and friends will be calling me this new name, and that makes me very happy.”
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© Copyright Bruce D. Bruce; All Rights Reserved
***
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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: "Sólstöður [“Solar Positions”] "
Album: MISOGYNY IS NOT A MUSIC GENRE
Artist: Kælan Mikla [The Great Cool]
Artist Location: Reykjavík, Iceland
Record Company: Artoffact Records
Record Company Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Info:
“Over the first 50 Artoffact releases, only two women played as part of bands.
“Today, the label would not exist without the musicianship, songwriting, art design, publicity, and creative acumen of the women signed to the label, or who work for the label. Without whom we are nothing …
“The creators: Shannon Hemmet, Milena Eva, Sólveig Matthildur, Laufey Soffía, Margrét Rósa, Hannah Avalon, Mary Slevin, Kendall Wooding, Karen Asmundson, Gina Marie Scardino, K. Dylan Edrich, Winter Zora, Kanga, Alis Alias, Alli Gorman, Jennifer Parkin, Stefania Alos Pedretti, Madison Marshall, Alina Belova.
“Special guests: Anna Bouchard, Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo.”
nofatclips, a fan, wrote, “Another great collection that made me aware of a couple of bands whose discography I need to explore ASAP; as well as teasing me with new stuff from the bands I learned to love in the past couple of years! Favorite track: ‘Sólstöður.’”
Price: Name Your Price (Included FREE) for 19-track album
Genre: Dark Pop. Various.
Links:
MISOGYNY IS NOT A MUSIC GENRE
Kælan Mikla on YouTube
Kælan Mikla [The Great Cool] - Wikipedia
Artoffact Records on Band Camp
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
Twofer
New Venture
Michael Egan
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
The defective rooster sounded like he's glad the rain is gone and showed his appreciation most of the day.
Catalog Sold To Warner Music
David Bowie
Warner Music Group's publishing unit has bought late British rock star David Bowie's entire catalog spanning six decades, including hits such as "Heroes" and "Let's Dance."
Bowie, who pushed the boundaries of music and his own sanity to produce some of the most innovative songs of his generation, died in 2016 aged 69.
The deal between Bowie's estate and Warner Music includes songs from the 26 studio albums released during his lifetime, as well as the posthumous studio album release "Toy".
Warner Music did not disclose the financial terms of the deal in its announcement on Monday, but a person familiar with the matter said the purchase was worth about $250 million.
The deal for his catalog is the latest in the media rights sector, where companies have sought to boost royalties by purchasing artists' catalogs after the pandemic hit physical revenue streams and delayed release of new recordings.
David Bowie
Says Agent
Betty White
No matter what you've read on the internet, Betty White did not receive a COVID-19 vaccine booster shot just three days before her death.
Her agent and friend Jeff Witjas told People that claims the TV legend was negatively affected by a shot on Dec. 28 were untrue. He noted that White also didn't say something that has been attributed to her: "Eat healthy and get all your vaccines. I just got boosted today."
"Betty died peacefully in her sleep at her home. People are saying her death was related to getting a booster shot three days earlier but that is not true," Witjas said. "She died of natural causes. Her death should not be politicized — that is not the life she lived."
Surely, fans of White had to have known that the quote, at least, did not sound like the Golden Girls actress. She was known for regularly insisting that eating hot dogs — she preferred them with vodka — was the secret to living a long life, so much so that the famous Los Angeles hot dog stand Pink's is selling a special hot dog in honor of White this week. Proceeds from the sale of the Betty White Naked Hot Dog will go to the Los Angeles Zoo, a cause that White supported. "Betty White, We Will Love You Forever!!!" a banner on the eatery read.
Betty White
Latest Game To Go Viral
'Wordle'
Have you been seeing strange messages on social media? A bunch of colorful blocks, then a message with a fraction?
If so, you're following someone — or, more likely, several someones — who plays "Wordle." The messages are how "Wordle" players share their daily successes (and failures) with the world.
You don't need a PlayStation 5, or even a smartphone, to participate. To play "Wordle," you only need access to a web browser with some form of text entry.
From there, the game's basic premise is explained: Every day there's a new five-letter word to guess.
With each word you guess, the game tells you how many letters from your guess are in the solution. If they're colored green, then they're in the solution but in the wrong place. If they're colored orange, they're in the solution in the right place. And if the letters are all grey, then none of the letters are in the solution.
'Wordle'
Rembrandt van Rijn
‘Night Watch’
Rembrandt van Rijn’s iconic and huge painting “The Night Watch” is now also a supersized museum photo delivered right to your laptop in unsurpassed detail.
The Amsterdam Rijksmuseum on Monday put on its digital portal what it called “the most detailed photograph of any artwork” ready for assessment by scientists and art lovers alike. It is expected to draw widespread interest especially since the museum is closed because of coronavirus measures.
The 717-gigapixel photo allows viewers to zoom in on Captain Frans Banninck Cocq and see how the 17th-century master put the tiniest of white dots in his eyes to give life to the painting’s main character. It also shows the minute cracks in his pupils, brought on by the passage of time.
The real canvas measures 379.5 x 453.5 centimeters (149.4 x178.5 inches) canvas and each pixel represents 5 micrometers or 0.005 square millimeters.
The Night Watch will be removed from its wooden stretcher in two weeks and placed on a new one to remove rippling that was caused when the world famous painting was housed in a temporary gallery while the Rijksmuseum underwent major renovations from 2003-2013.
‘Night Watch’
“Collapse of American Democracy”
Prediction
The US could be under a rightwing dictatorship by 2030, a Canadian political science professor has warned, urging his country to protect itself against the “collapse of American democracy”.
“We mustn’t dismiss these possibilities just because they seem ludicrous or too horrible to imagine,” Thomas Homer-Dixon, founding director of the Cascade Institute at Royal Roads University in British Columbia, wrote in the Globe and Mail.
“In 2014, the suggestion that Donald Trump (R-Lock Him Up) would become president would also have struck nearly everyone as absurd. But today we live in a world where the absurd regularly becomes real and the horrible commonplace.”
Homer-Dixon’s message was blunt: “By 2025, American democracy could collapse, causing extreme domestic political instability, including widespread civil violence. By 2030, if not sooner, the country could be governed by a rightwing dictatorship.”
The author cited eventualities centered on a Trump return to the White House in 2024, possibly including Republican-held state legislatures refusing to accept a Democratic win.
Prediction
Bogus Research
Election Fraud
When the 2020 election didn’t go Trump’s way, Peter Navarro did something dangerous. He began to do his own research.
Navarro, an economist whom Donald Trump tapped to lead his trade war against China, didn’t stay in his lane at the White House. He’d already inserted himself in the administration’s botched pandemic response, pushing the unproven hypothesis that Covid-19 escaped from a Wuhan lab. And after the 2020 vote, Navarro began compiling a series of inflammatory dossiers on the outcome — with names like “The Immaculate Deception,” “The Art of the Steal,” and “Yes, Trump Won” — pushing the Big Lie that the election was stolen.
Navarro’s reports include debunked allegations of “outright voter fraud” across six battleground states, including “the large-scale manufacturing of fake ballots, bribery, and dead voters” as well as roundly discredited conspiracy theories alleging sordid connections between voting machine companies, a former Venezuelan dictator, the Clinton Foundation, and George Soros.
That advocacy by Trump helped Navarro, along with close ally Steve Bannon, prepare for a Jan. 6 plot they hoped could overturn Joe Biden’s victory. Together with Bannon, Navarro developed a plan to block the Electoral College vote count, called the Green Bay Sweep after a daring football play run by the NFL’s Packers in the Vince Lombardi era. (Bannon did not respond to a detailed list of questions about his involvement in this effort.)
The ploy called on sitting congressmen and senators, during the Jan. 6 joint session of Congress, to object to the counting of votes from six battleground states, where Navarro had decried fraud and electoral irregularities. Across both chambers, each state challenge would prompt four hours of debate. The intention was to create a 24-hour Republican propaganda blitz that could “punch through” directly to the public and give Mike Pence, in his capacity as Senate president, cover to delay certification of the Electoral College vote, sending the contested tallies back to the states.
Election Fraud
Unusual Request
Federal Intervention
In the snow-packed driveway of Saturnino Javier’s home, a dozen extended family members gathered last week with drums formed from cedar and animal skin, intoning the prayerful songs they had learned growing up in the Nooksack Indian Tribe.
For decades, Javier and his family have seen the tribe in northern Washington as their people, their home. But they are now among more than 300 people who are being disowned by the tribe, on the losing end of a bitter disenrollment battle that has torn apart families and left dozens of people facing eviction in the middle of the coldest Washington winter in years.
In recent days, the tribe has mobilized its police force to begin removing Javier, who lives with his three children, and others from their tribal homes, after having already cut off educational aid, health services, financial stipends — and whatever remained of what was once an expansive sense of community.
“The main thing is identity,” Javier said last week in the stove-heated living room of the three-bedroom tribal home he has lived in since 2010, a traditional cedar-woven hat hanging from the wall beside him. “Your whole life, you think you are Nooksack, and then, bam, they are saying you are not Nooksack.”
In an Indigenous community that has always championed Native Americans’ sovereign rights and independence from federal oversight, the outcast Nooksack members are so outraged that they are petitioning the federal government to intervene. The Biden administration, which made a commitment to honoring tribal self-determination, now faces thorny questions over whether it should take the extraordinary step of challenging tribal sovereignty on an issue so fundamental as how the tribe chooses who gets to live on tribal lands.
Federal Intervention
Exploding Meteor
Pittsburgh
A meteor that caused an earthshaking boom over suburban Pittsburgh on New Year’s Day exploded in the atmosphere with an energy blast equivalent to an estimated 30 tons (27,216 kilograms) of TNT, officials said.
NASA’s Meteor Watch social media site said late Sunday a “reasonable assumption” of the speed of the meteor at about 45,000 mph (72,420 kph) would allow a “ballpark” estimate of its size as about a yard in diameter with a mass close to half a ton (454 kilograms).
If not for the cloudy weather, NASA said, it would have been easily visible in the daytime sky — maybe about 100 times the brightness of the full moon.
A nearby infrasound station registered the blast wave from the meteor as it broke apart, enabling the estimates.
Residents in South Hills and other areas reported hearing a loud noise and feeling their homes shaking and rattling. Allegheny County officials said they had confirmed that there was no seismic activity and no thunder and lightning.
Pittsburgh
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