Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Michele Hanson: Teaching is on the road to hell - the story of the national curriculum proves it (The Guardian)
Teachers have been dragged through endless, mostly mystifying changes since 1988 - and still more are in the pipeline. Will the government stop making a dog's breakfast of education?
Andrew Tobias: Pre-Empting The October Surprise
We're also making progress on redistricting. A state like Pennsylvania - which in 2012 gave Democratic Congressional candidates 51% of the votes but Republicans 13 of the 18 seats - is an example. It's top court recently struck down the current districts as "clearly, plainly and palpably" unconstitutional. In November, if we get half the votes , we might get half the seats. What a concept. And we might well get more than 50% of the votes.
Paul Krugman: "Notes on European Recovery (Wonkish)" (NY Times Column)
Here in the English-speaking world, most of us in the econo-pundit business have been focusing a lot on the US economy post-Trump, and secondarily on the British economy post-Brexit. But once in a while we ought to look further afield. And there's a pretty big story that isn't getting much play in the US, at least: the significant recovery finally taking place in Europe.
Josh Marshall: More Mulling On Rachel Brand's Departure (TPM)
Brand sees that continued association with Trump and the Trump DOJ is a threat to her reputation. Maybe that's just based on the stuff we all see now. Maybe she sees some storm coming. Both seem possible. Either way, that's a pretty plausible concern. She got the offer. She took it. I've heard speculation that perhaps Walmart is doing Trump a favor, helping get Brand out of the way. We have no basis for thinking that on the current evidence. But even if it were true, I think the same interpretation applies. She thinks the best thing for her career is to get out now. As a matter of self-interest, who can blame her.
Michele Hanson: What the saviour of London's pigeons taught me about the problem with plastic (The Guardian)
Decades ago, the late writer and critic Naomi Lewis spent hours on the streets rescuing birds tangled in nylon thread. She should have been a warning sign of the horrors to come
Lisa Mosconi: It's not just in the genes: the foods that can help and harm your brain (The Guardian)
Our diet has a huge effect on our brain and our mental wellbeing, even protecting against dementia. So, what should be on the menu?
Cara Marsh Sheffler: Woody Allen's films move many people. It's time to ask why (The Guardian)
Allen's poor treatment of women didn't just play out in a tabloid divorce, but also in dozens of movies many of us adored and paid to see.
Gwilym Mumford: "Michael Haneke: #MeToo has led to a witch hunt 'coloured by a hatred of men'" (The Guardian)
Austrian film-maker says that movement against sexual assault has prompted a 'crusade against any form of eroticism' that belongs in Middle Ages.
Alison Flood: 'Hurtful' Harper Lee and Mark Twain dropped from Minnesota curriculum (The Guardian)
To Kill a Mockingbird and Huckleberry Finn to be dropped from Duluth area classes because of 'uncomfortable atmosphere' their use of racial slurs creates.
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Presenting
Michael Egan
took the day off.
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
David E Suggests
Curtain Cheat Sheet
David
Thanks, Dave!
Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
Reader Comment
Current Events
Fasten your seatbelts!
If Axios is right, to quote Bette Davis, it's going to be a BUMPY night!
President Trump today will unveil a $1.5 trillion infrastructure plan that his own aides don't think will pass, and a $4 trillion budget that Axios' Jonathan Swan calls "science fiction."
It's the strangest of year-ahead plans for a party that controls the White House and both chambers of commerce: Top Republicans see Job 1 for this year as promoting the tax cut they passed last year.
With the House in danger in November's midterms, a Republican close to the White House tells me this is a year for pumping Trump's base on taxes, economic growth and the wall (or the fight for the wall), "while the Dems help with focus on immigrants. For Rs, this is a year to avoid losing."
So ignore the documents and blather today. Here's Trump's real plan for '18:
from Marc Perkel
Marc's Guide to Curing Cancer
So far so good on beating cancer for now. I'm doing fine. At the end of the month I'll be 16 months into an 8 month mean lifespan. And yesterday I went on a 7 mile hike and managed to keep up with the hiking group I was with. So, doing something right.
Still waiting for future test results and should see things headed in the right direction. I can say that it's not likely that anything dire happens in the short term so that means that I should have time to make several more attempts at this. So even if it doesn't work the first time there are a lot of variations to try. So if there's bad news it will help me pick the next radiation target.
I have written a "how to" guide for oncologists to perform the treatment that I got. I'm convinced that I'm definitely onto something and whether it works for me or not isn't the definitive test. I know if other people tried this that it would work for some of them, and if they improve it that it will work for a lot of them.
The guide is quite detailed and any doctor reading this can understand the procedure at every level. I also go into detail as to how it works, how I figured it out, and variations and improvements that could be tried to enhance it. I also introduce new ways to look at the problem. There is a lot of room for improvement and I think that doctors reading it will see what I'm talking about and want to build on it. And it's written so that if you're not a doctor you can still follow it. It also has a personal story revealing that I'm the class clown of cancer support group. I give great interviews and I look pretty hot in a lab coat.
So, feel free to read this and see what I'm talking about. But if any of you want to help then pass this around to both doctors and cancer patients. I need some media coverage. I'm looking for as many eyeballs as possible to read these ideas. Even if this isn't the solution, it's definitely on the right track. After all, I did hike 7 miles yesterday. And this hiking group wasn't moving slow. So if this isn't working then, why am I still here?
I also see curing cancer as more of an engineering problem that a medical problem. So if you are good at solving problems and most of what you know about medicine was watching the Dr. House MD TV show, then you're at the level I was at when I started. So anyone can jump in and be part of the solution.
Here is a link to my guide: Oncologists Guide to Curing Cancer using Abscopal Effect
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
"PAID FOR BY…"
AMERICAS GARBAGE DUMP.
'PEACE AND LOVE' VERSES TRUMP.
'PRUNE WHIP' WILLL KILL US ALL.
'CLOVEN HOOF' BUNDY.
THEY ARE DROPPING LIKE FLYS.
HEY REPUGS. BE A TRAITOR FOR $25,000.
"WE'RE ON THE BRINK…"
"IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT AND I FEEL FINE.
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Overcast day, rainy night.
Mandy Patinkin
Emmy and Tony Award-winning actor Mandy Patinkin used his Walk of Fame star-dedicating ceremony in Hollywood Monday to make an impassioned speech calling for respect and dignity for refugees.
The 65-year-old Chicago native, best known for playing CIA operative Saul Berenson in Showtime spy drama "Homeland," welcomed an Iraqi refugee to the event and implored the crowd to recognize the plight of the dispossessed.
"I want you to think about these people, who are the most vulnerable among us all over the world, who need our attention, more attention than you can imagine, so that they can have quality lives and bring their children up in a healthy, not war-torn, atmosphere and grow and live and prosper," he said.
Patinkin, whose grandfather fled the Nazis in German-occupied Poland, and whose grandmother escaped the Russian pogroms, has traveled extensively to witness the plight of displaced people since going to Greece in 2015 to help refugees from war-torn Syria.
He said noticing the ethnic diversity of the US squad at the Winter Olympics in South Korea had reminded him of the contribution immigrants had made to the country.
Mandy Patinkin
Wins Newbery Prize
'Hello, Universe'
Erin Entrada Kelly's "Hello, Universe," a nuanced account of a diverse group of middle school students and their unexpected encounters, has won the John Newbery Medal for the outstanding children's book of 2017. The Randolph Caldecott Medal for best illustration went to Matthew Cordell and his near-wordless story of a girl and the wolf pup she saves, "Wolf in the Snow."
The awards were announced Monday by the American Library Association, which has gathered in Denver for its annual mid-winter meeting. Both the Newbery and Caldecott medals are more than 80 years old, with previous winners including Jacqueline Woodson's "Brown Girl Dreaming" and Madeleine L'Engle's "A Wrinkle in Time."
On Monday, Woodson who received the Laura Ingalls Wilder award for lifetime achievement and Nina LaCour's "We Are Okay" was given the Michael L. Printz Award for best young adult literature. Angie Thomas' "The Hate U Give," one of last year's top-selling young adult novels, was cited twice. It won a William C. Morris Award for best debut book for teens and an Odyssey Award for best audiobook.
Renee Watson's "Piecing Me Together" won the Coretta Scott King Award for outstanding book by an African-American. The King award for best illustrator went to Ekua Holmes for "Out of Wonder: Poems Celebrating Poets." Eloise Greenfield, whose dozens of books include "Honey, I Love" and "In the Land of Words," won the King award for lifetime achievement.
The Pura Belpre Award for best Latino book was given to "Lucky Broken Girl," by Ruth Behar. The Pura Belpre illustrator prize went to Juana Martinez-Neal and "La Princesa and the Pea."
'Hello, Universe'
Americans Don't Care?
Domestic Violence
The Trump White House knew about Rob Porter. Why was he allowed to assume and maintain his powerful position in the West Wing, when administration officials had long been aware of allegations that he abused at least three women? Why did it take public pressure, energized by the release of photos of a woman's battered face, for the White House to let Porter resign? The answer is simple: White House officials don't take domestic violence seriously, and they don't think the American people do, either. And they're right.
Domestic violence is yet to have its #MeToo moment ? even though intimate partner violence, like sexual harassment, is a crime that tends to be perpetrated by men against women, and even though domestic violence often involves sexualized violence. We may be on the verge of a similar cultural tipping point on domestic violence, but for now, at least, people seem to find it easier to voice their support for survivors of rape and sexual assault than for survivors of intimate partner violence.
Tolerance of partner abuse remains a widespread problem, despite advances with respect to other forms of violence against women. It can be difficult, in survey research, to demonstrate the extent to which the American public accepts domestic violence, since people are reluctant to endorse overtly negative statements about domestic violence survivors in surveys.
But these biases still show up, particularly among men, who are more likely than women to believe both what researchers call domestic violence myths - such as the idea that a woman who stays with an abusive partner is responsible for what happens to her - and rape myths, like the idea that women often have sex with men, regret it, and then "cry rape." Yet far more academic attention has been paid to rape myth acceptance than to domestic violence myth acceptance. In academic databases, articles on the former outnumber articles on the latter by a factor of 43 to 1.
Domestic Violence
Replaced With Canned Goods
Food Stamp Benefits
Facing a trillion-dollar deficit because of his just-passed tax cuts, President-for-now Donald Trump (R-Corrupt) has an idea for how to get some of that money back: making poor people eat beans and rice.
In a symbolic budget proposal unveiled Monday, the Trump administration called for sharp spending reductions in a variety of anti-poverty programs. In addition to a steep 25 percent cut to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly known as food stamps, Trump would fundamentally alter how the program works.
Currently, SNAP gives 42 million Americans a food voucher worth $125 per person that can be redeemed for almost any food product in a grocery store. It's one of the most important safety net programs in the U.S.
"Under the proposal," Monday's budget document says, "households receiving $90 or more per month in SNAP benefits will receive a portion of their benefits in the form of a USDA Foods package, which would include items such as shelf-stable milk, ready to eat cereals, pasta, peanut butter, beans and canned fruit, vegetables, and meat, poultry or fish."
Food Stamp Benefits
Warming Accelerating Rise
Sea Level
Melting ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica are speeding up the already fast pace of sea level rise, new satellite research shows.
At the current rate, the world's oceans on average will be at least 2 feet (61 centimeters) higher by the end of the century compared to today, according to researchers who published in Monday's Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences.
Globally, sea level rise is mainly caused by warming of the ocean and melting from glaciers and ice sheets. The research, based on 25 years of satellite data, shows that pace has quickened, mainly from the melting of massive ice sheets. It confirms scientists' computer simulations and is in line with predictions from the United Nations, which releases regular climate change reports.
"It's a big deal" because the projected sea level rise is a conservative estimate and it is likely to be higher, said lead author Steve Nerem of the University of Colorado.
Like weather and climate, there are two factors in sea level rise: year-to-year small rises and falls that are caused by natural events and larger long-term rising trends that are linked to man-made climate change. Nerem's team removed the natural effects of the 1991 Mt. Pinatubo eruption that temporarily chilled Earth and the climate phenomena El Nino and La Nina, and found the accelerating trend.
Sea Level
Attacking The Women
Defending Men
President-for-now Trump (R-Pendejo) appeared to express doubt on Saturday about the multiple accusations of domestic violence that led to the resignations former White House staff secretary Rob Porter and speechwriter David Sorensen.
"Peoples [sic] lives are being shattered and destroyed by a mere allegation," Trump tweeted. "Some are true and some are false. Some are old and some are new. There is no recovery for someone falsely accused - life and career are gone. Is there no such thing any longer as Due Process?"
The tweet came a day after Trump publicly addressed the Porter scandal, repeating Porter's denial without mentioning his alleged victims.
In an op-ed for Time magazine, Jennie Willoughby, Porter's second ex-wife, treated Trump's remarks as an insult.
"The words 'mere allegation' and "falsely accused" meant to imply that I am a liar," Willoughby wrote. "That the work Rob was doing in the White House was of higher value than our mental, emotional or physical wellbeing. That his professional contributions are worth more than the truth. That abuse is something to be questioned and doubted."
Defending Men
Set To File For Bankruptcy
Remington
Where's Hillary Clinton when the gun industry needs her? The Democrat's election loss to Donald Trump (R-Crooked) was cheered by the National Rifle Association and other gun lobbyists, given the current U.S. president's commitment to allowing unfettered access to firearms.
However, with customers less concerned that their ability to accumulate guns might be cut off, retailers that had built up inventory anticipating a Clinton presidency found themselves with lots of unsold guns on their hands.
Gunmakers including Remington Outdoor took a hit, and the Madison, North Carolina-based company on Monday said in a statement that it intends to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after reaching an accord with lenders that grants them ownership of the 200-year-old company.
A preset reorganization will be filed with the federal bankruptcy court in Delaware that will allow Remington to continue operating while it works out a strategy to pay back creditors and get the business back on its feet.
Holders of Remington's $550 million term loan will get an 82.5 percent equity stake in the gunmaker, and third-lien note holders will get 17.5 percent of Remington and four-year warrants for a 15 percent stake, the gunmaker's statement said. Creditors will also grant a $100 million debtor-in-possession loan to keep Remington running through bankruptcy.
Remington
First Class Habit
Pruitt
Scott Pruitt (R-Exxon), the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, regularly flies first or business class, often costing American taxpayers thousands of dollars more than equivalent seats in coach, The Washington Post reported on Sunday.
Several such flights last June cost more than $90,000 in total, including an hour-and-a-half trip between Washington D.C. and New York booked first class for $1,641, the outlet noted, citing EPA receipts obtained by the Environmental Integrity Project through Freedom of Information Act requests.
The Post said Pruitt is often booked in premium cabins for unspecified security reasons, and the EPA said his schedule is not released in advance ? a major point of consternation among political watchdogs ? for similar reasons. Pruitt regularly travels with a large contingent of aides, but they're usually booked in coach. It's unclear if members of his security detail fly in first class with him.
HuffPost reached out to the agency for comment, but EPA spokeswoman Liz Bowman told the Post Pruitt's trips amounted to an effort "to further positive environmental outcomes and achieve tangible environmental results."
The Hill notes that federal regulations mandate government employees "consider the least expensive class of travel" for their needs, but there are provisions for "exceptional security circumstances" that allow for premium bookings. The EPA pays for Pruitt to have an extensive, 24/7 security detail at a cost of nearly $2 million a year, excluding costs like travel.
Pruitt
Long-Stalled Casino-Resort Gets New Life
Las Vegas
The Fontainebleau is no more. Call it The Drew Las Vegas.
The hulking, bluish casino-resort, which has sat unfinished on the Las Vegas Strip since 2009 and became a poster child of the Great Recession, is now scheduled to open in late 2020 under a partnership between hospitality giant Marriott International and New York-based global real estate firm Witkoff.
The new luxury property, which will feature a casino and approximately 4,000 rooms and suites, announced Monday that it also will be home to the Strip's first JW Marriott.
The site near the Circus Circus and SLS hotel-casinos, as well as the Las Vegas Convention Center, has been dormant since 2009, about two years after privately held Fontainebleau Resorts LLC began work on the $2.9 billion, 3,900-room project. The 63-story tower was 70 percent finished when the recession stopped construction.
Business magnate Carl Icahn and his firm, Icahn NV Gaming Acquisition LLC, bought the property out of bankruptcy in 2010 for $150 million. Witkoff and Miami-based investment firm New Valley LLC purchased it for $600 million in August.
Las Vegas
In Memory
Vic Damone
Vic Damone, whose mellow baritone once earned praise from Frank Sinatra as "the best pipes in the business," has died in Florida at the age of 89, his daughter said.
Damone's easy-listening romantic ballads brought him million-selling records and sustained a half-century career in recordings, movies and nightclub, concert and television appearances.
After winning a tie on the radio show "Arthur Godfrey's Talent Hunt," Damone's career began climbing. His hit singles included "Again," ''You're Breaking My Heart," ''My Heart Cries for You," ''On the Street Where You Live" and, in 1957, the title song of the Cary Grant film "An Affair to Remember."
Damone's style as a lounge singer remained constant through the years: straightforward, concentrated on melody and lyrics without resorting to vocal gimmicks. Like many young singers of his era, his idol was Sinatra.
Sinatra and Damone, along with Tony Bennett, Perry Como, Dean Martin and others - comprised a group of Italian Americans who dominated the postwar pop music field. Far from resenting the mimicry, Sinatra praised Damone's singing ability.
Damone still drew crowds in nightclubs and concerts into his 70s, before illness prompted his retirement to Palm Beach with his fifth wife, fashion designer Rena Rowan.
Damone appeared in several MGM musicals and he was originally cast in "The Godfather," but the role of a budding singer seeking mob help in a Hollywood career eventually went to Al Martino.
Vic Damone
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