Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Paul Waldman: Why Democrats are weirdly unified these days (Washington Post)
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) prevailed on everyone that they'll be much more likely to accomplish their common goals if they stick together.
But there's an even more important reason Democrats are not in disarray: The party is simply not as ideologically diverse as it once was.
the Democratic Party has moved left in the past couple of years, even the so-called moderates have become pretty liberal. There's one more factor keeping Democrats in Congress from fighting with each other:
Paul Waldman: The prospect of easier and fairer voting terrifies Republicans (Washington Post)
what McConnell is saying is that if our voting system were more efficient, more open and more fair, then the inevitable result would be fewer Republicans winning elections. In other words, Republican success depends on the system working in ways that restrict access to the ballot. I happen to think that's fairly obvious and has been for some time. But it's remarkable to hear the second most powerful Republican in America admit it.
Alexandra Petri: I am sick of hearing about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez from myself, talking about her (Washington Post)
Why is it that when I look into fire, her face emerges and when I gaze at the spots on a cow (She hates the cows! She wants to destroy them!), I see what appears to be her profile? How can it be that this week alone I have read 18 articles about her, two of which I did not write?
Joe Bob Briggs: The Atheists Get Cross-Eyed (Taki's Magazine)
This is pure Francophilia. This is their principle of laοcitι, which says everything in the so-called "public square" must be secular, and all religious communication must be in places reserved for religious observance. In other words, the French aim to make preaching or worshipping God a second-class form of speech. There's no such principle in our Constitution, and there's no such meaning in Thomas Jefferson's famous "separation of church and state" letter. To the contrary, we have precedents going back three centuries saying that the public square is a shared space, open to all, including the various religions. The only thing the government can't do is endorse one religion over the others.
Avani Dias: Have you been getting unexpected overseas calls? Here's why
(ANC Australia)
"If you call them back the call will be charged at a very high rate and a large percentage of that cost will be transferred to them so they'll get the money."
Andrew Tobias: Three Podcasts And Those Calls From Belarus
If you can deal with a heavy French accent, listen to Tina Brown's conversation with Bernard-Henri Lιvy about his new book, The Empire and the Five Kings: America's Abdication and the Fate of the World. It will redouble your commitment to saving democracy.
The Wonders of the Universe, and Other Things, with Mayim Bialik (Blue Zones)
This is from the Talmud: "We are told to carry two pieces of paper and keep one in each of our pockets. One should read, 'For my sake, the world was created.' The other should read, 'I am but dust and ashes.'" I seek in my life to live in a way that reconciles this tension. It was advice given to me by my rabbi in college.
Anna Leszkiewicz: Why are we so worried about "Instapoetry"? (New Statesman)
The legitimacy of "Instapoetry" has long been fiercely debated: but the rise of the term has sparked a fragmented critical conversation.
Bruce Dalzell: I Cannot Look Away (YouTube)
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Presenting
Michael Egan
responded:
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Reader Comment
The Wall
Hi Marty,
I came across this item on my Facebook page today; so much for "build the wall"!
from Bruce
Anecdotes
George Bernard Shaw was traveling in Italy with a group of men on a train. The train stopped at Milan, and the men got out to eat. When it came time to leave the restaurant, they were unable to make the waiter understand that they didn't want one bill - they wanted separate bills for each of the men. Mr. Shaw thought for a while, then remembered a line from The Huguenots- "Ognuno per se; per tutti il ciel" (Italian for "Every man for himself, and Heaven for all"). He declaimed the line dramatically, the waiters doubled up with laughter, and Mr. Shaw soon found he had a reputation for being able to speak Italian.
Learning languages is difficult because so many expressions are used in only one language. For example, an American says that you are driving too fast by asking, "Where's the fire?" However, this expression does not translate literally into other languages. Ruth Sasaki once thought her taxi driver in Tokyo was driving too fast, so she asked him, in Japanese, where the fire was. This confused the driver, who replied that he did not know where the fire was, but if she would tell him the address, he would drive her there.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (the creator of Sherlock Holmes) and his wife were believers in spiritualism; escape artist Harry Houdini was not. Nevertheless, they all became friends. Once, Lady Conan Doyle held a seance and attempted to contact Houdini's deceased mother. She fell into a trance and wrote down a message for Houdini from his mother, then she came out of the trance. The Conan Doyles regarded the seance as a complete success; however, Houdini did not. The message Lady Doyle had written was in English - a language his Yiddish-speaking mother did not know.
While in San Francisco, Mark Twain undertook to learn French. One day, a Frenchman who knew no English started asking questions of a group Mr. Twain was in. Because Mr. Twain was the only person in the group who had studied French, he listened to the Frenchman. However, before Mr. Twain had said a half-dozen words of French in reply, the Frenchman fainted, possibly from hunger. Mr. Twain said later, "I'll learn French if it kills every Frenchman in the country."
Pope John XXIII spoke several languages fluently, but he had trouble with English. During an audience with President Dwight David Eisenhower, he spoke English only at the beginning and ending of the audience. When President Eisenhower congratulated him on his English, Pope John XXIII replied, I'm going to night school. But I'm not doing very well.
I'm always at the bottom of the class."
In the TV series Hogan's Heroes, extras frequently had to speak a little German because the series was set in a World War II prisoner of war camp (not in a concentration camp). Chris Anders once played a German guard who had to tell some trucks to take off, so he said, "Fahrt Los." However, because the German word "fahrt" sounds like the English word "fart," the director stopped the scene, saying, "We can't use that!"
Ballerina Alice Patelson had a grandmother who had come from Finland, immigrating to the United States in 1912. When she was a little girl, Alice asked Grandmother Eine to teach her Norwegian. One day Alice decided to memorize a poem in Norwegian, which she then recited at school during show-and-tell. Her teacher was pleased, but the students were bewildered.
In the 19th century, when singer Emma Abbott was a little girl, she was intrigued to hear about bouquets of flowers being thrown to a prima donna on a stage. However, she worried that the prima donna would fall off if the stage should start going. Fortunately, her father was able to explain that there is a difference between a stage and a stagecoach.
It is possible to be affected by a play even though you don't know the language the actors are speaking. Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924) saw a dramatization of Madame Butterfly in London; however, even though he didn't understand English, he was affected by the passion of the story - a story that he turned into a famous opera.
Olin Downes, music critic of The New York Times, once objected in a review to mezzo-soprano Risλ Stevens' German in her appearance as Octavian in Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier. Finding herself seated next to Mr. Downes at a dinner party, Ms. Stevens spoke to him in German, forcing him to admit that he didn't speak German. She smiled and then said, "I do."
Andrei Kramarevsky taught classes at the American School of Ballet despite knowing very little English. According to ballerina Darci Kistler, one of his students, he knew only two English words. Ballerinas who made mistakes, he called "cheap." Ballerinas who didn't make mistakes, he called "expensive."
Alexander Woollcott and Harpo Marx were in a Paris hotel where Harpo upset the management with his shenanigans. Mr. Woollcott tried explaining Harpo to the management, but gave it up, turned to Harpo, and said, "How can I explain you? There's no French word for 'boob.'"
Orchestra conductor Hans Richter didn't speak English well. While crossing the Atlantic on a ship, he asked for a deck chair for his wife, explaining, "When she doesn't lie, she swindles." (The German word schwindel nmeans to get dizzy.)
Thomas Jefferson used to order different copies of a book in the same-sized edition, but in more than one language. When the books arrived, he had them re-bound together. That way, he could read the book in, for example, Greek and Latin.
In 1921, a Metropolitan Opera production of Modest Mussorgsky's opera Boris Godunov featured Feodor Chaliapin singing the title role in Russian, while everyone else sang in Italian. This production was a great success.
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Tijuana Migrant Shelters
America Ferrera
Actress America Ferrera led a small group of artists on a migrant shelter tour in the Mexican border city of Tijuana, across from San Diego, over the weekend. They dressed in casual clothes, with little to no makeup. They talked with immigration lawyers and shelter managers. They colored pictures with children. And they listened to harrowing tales of long treks through Mexico and beyond in hopes of starting a new life in the U.S.
Those aspirations have become tougher in recent months as U.S. border agents process only a handful of asylum requests a day, creating backlogs and limited space at shelters in Mexican border towns. Most shelters can accommodate only a few dozen migrants at a time, while thousands of Central Americans have made the arduous journey north, fleeing violence and poverty.
Many of these migrants are from Honduras, like Ferrera's parents.
"It is easy for me to look at these human beings and see myself," the actress, who became a household name after her title role in the TV show "Ugly Betty," said in a telephone interview Sunday. "This could very easily have been my reality in this lifetime."
America Ferrera
Hits Out
Gal Gadot
"Wonder Woman" star Gal Gadot waded into the debate over what it means to be Israeli after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the country is the homeland "only of the Jewish people."
"Love thy neighbor," the Israeli actress said Sunday on Instagram, where she has 28.3 million followers.
"It is not a matter of right or left, Arabs or Jews, secular or religious," she added. "It is a matter of dialogue, of dialogue for peace, and of our tolerance for each other. It is our responsibility to shine hope and light for a better future for our children."
Earlier Sunday, Netanyahu addressed "slightly confused people" on Instagram after model and actor Rotem Sela - a friend of Gadot's - defended the rights of Arab Israelis. The minority makes up around 20 percent of the country's population.
"Israel is not a state for all its citizens. According to the nation-state law that we passed, Israel is the state of the Jewish people - and belongs to them alone," Netanyahu wrote.
Gal Gadot
Robocall Hell
John Oliver
John Oliver is robocalling all FCC commissioners, including his nemesis, FCC chairman Ajit Pai, to protest Pai's decision not to attack the menace that keeps growing.
Thanks to new tactics, which Oliver detailed on Sunday's Last Week Tonight, robocalling is only getting worse. Some pundits estimate they will soon account for half of American's mobile phone calls.
This, Oliver said, is a big problem for consumers because we have to use these phones. "We can't go back to a time when people would just shout their message into a jar, and then mail that jar across country," he joked. Because, of course, that was a terrible system and "only marginally more accurate than having AT&T now."
The FCC could do something about all the robocalling, but unfortunately the current chair is Ajit Pai, Oliver said.
Pai says the right things, calling robocalls a blight. But Pai is opposed to rules that would curtail the calls and was happy when what rules were there got overturned. That's despite the fact 60% of all complaints to the FCC are about robocalls, Oliver reported, citing CBS News.
John Oliver
Sequel Plans
'Bohemian Rhapsody'
Fans of last year's award-winning Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody may be in for a treat, as the prospect of a sequel to the blockbuster biopic is apparently a very real possibility.
According to a new interview with a director of several Queen music videos, the idea of a sequel is currently something that is being discussed by the band and the people associated with them.
Rudi Dolezal shot the videos for some of Queen's biggest hits, including Seven Seas of Rhye and One Vision, as well as becoming a close personal friend of Freddie Mercury.
The 61-year-old director told Page Six about the potential sequel while discussing Jim Beach, who was the band's manager and is played in the film by British actor Tom Hollander.
"I'm sure he [Beach] plans a sequel that starts with Live Aid," Dolezal said, adding the follow-up film is "being heavily discussed in the Queen family".
'Bohemian Rhapsody'
Deep Cuts In Spending
U.S. Science
For the third year in a row, President Donald Trump's (R-OfVlad) administration has unveiled a budget request to Congress that calls for deep spending cuts at many federal science agencies, including a 13% cut for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and a 12% cut for the National Science Foundation (NSF), while providing hefty increases for the military.
But the $4.7 trillion request for the 2020 fiscal year that begins 1 October, released today, is already drawing bipartisan pushback from lawmakers in Congress and-as with past Trump administration requests-many of the cuts are unlikely to be enacted into law.
The president's science adviser, Kelvin Droegemeier, calls the request "an important down payment on America's future." A statement from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), which he leads, says the president's budget "promotes responsible spending [by] prioritizing high-impact programs that have been shown to be effective."
The OSTP statement cites artificial intelligence (AI), quantum information science, wireless 5G communications, and advanced manufacturing as administration priorities. It says the request would allocate $850 million for AI development and $430 million for quantum science across several agencies. But it's impossible to tell whether that level of investment is higher or lower than current spending.
What is clear, however, is that those investments would be part of a diminished federal research enterprise. The OSTP statement says the president's 2020 request represents an overall federal investment of $134 billion in R&D. That figure, if enacted, would be 11% lower than the estimated $151.5 billion being spent this year on R&D.
U.S. Science
It's Back
'Fake Melania'
The conspiracy theory that has people all over the internet convinced Melania Trump uses a body double is back.
The First "Lady", along with her husband, 72-year-old Donald Trump (R-Serial Adulterer), visited Alabama on Friday after the area was recently devastated by a tornado.
As soon as they got off the plane, the internet lit up with people tweeting about the return of 'Fake Melania'.
It became so big that the hashtag #FakeMelania started trending, with people giving their two cents on why they think the real Melania has a body double to fill in for her.
The whole conspiracy theory started back in 2017 and hasn't gone away since.
'Fake Melania'
'Won' Golf Tournament Without Even Playing
Golf Story
Regardless of your feelings on President Trump (R-Serial Prevaricator), you can't deny that the man knows and loves his golf. He's put his name on well over a dozen courses around the world, he's hosted majors at his clubs, and he can pick up the phone and get Tiger Woods or Dustin Johnson in his foursome. Oh, and he's apparently a good enough golfer that he can win tournaments he doesn't even enter.
The latest Trump Golf Story - they're like fish stories, except bigger, so much bigger, the biggest - comes to us courtesy of Golf.com's esteemed Michael Bamberger, who reports that Trump's locker at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Fla. boasts a new plaque. This one reads "2018 Men's Club Champion."
Winning a club championship is a heck of a feat for anyone, especially a 72-year-old man with a demanding day job. (Fact check: During 2018, Donald Trump was serving as president of the United States.) But here's the really wild part: Trump didn't even play in the tournament.
So how did he end up with that plaque on his locker, a commemoration of his 20th club championship? (All of those club championships have come at clubs Trump owns, which definitely helps ensure the engraver spells his name correctly.) According to Bamberger, the original winner was a gentleman by the name of Ted Virtue, a CEO with memberships at Winged Foot and Trump International.
Virtue claims a handicap of 3.3, and he's backed that up with 20 scores posted in 2018 and 2019 ranging from 73 to 83. Not PGA Tour-level play, but pretty dang solid for a 58-year-old. (Trump, for the record, claims a handicap of 2.8, and has only posted two scores since 2016.) Virtue, who was part of the team that helped make the Academy Award-winning "The Green Book," won the club championship the usual way, by triumphing in multiple matches.
Golf Story
Evidence of 'Enormous' Solar Storm
660 BC
An "enormous" solar storm that struck ancient Earth has provided a stark warning another event of this size could be around the corner.
Revealed by analysis of chemicals preserved in Greenland ice, the storm around 2,600 years ago was 10 times stronger than anything detected in 70 years of modern measurements.
While the people of 660 BC had little to fear, such episodes would be of grave concern today given their capacity to destroy satellites, communications and electrical systems.
Solar storms are triggered by flares of cosmic particles streaming towards Earth, bombarding its magnetic field and interfering with various technologies.
Although just the third storm of its kind identified so far, the scientists said this was more evidence these major events had been underestimated, and must be urgently defended against.
660 BC
Carried by Tiny Particles With Negative Gravity?
Sound
Conventional wisdom in physics dictates that sound waves are massless fluctuations in pressure that travel through materials like air, water, and eardrums - and can't travel through empty space.
That's why the recent discovery that sound waves actually do carry a trace amount of mass is so shocking - it's been right under scientists' noses for centuries. Even more surprising, according to Scientific American's reporting on the finding, is that sonic waves seem to carry negative mass: they appear to slowly drift upwards rather than falling down to Earth.
New research, recently published in the journal Physical Review Letters, found that sound waves carry trace amounts of mass in the form of tiny, particle-like "phonons".
Previous research by one of the same scientists first found this negative gravity phenomenon, but only when the sound was traveling through specific materials called superfluids, through which waves can flow with zero resistance. But in this new study, physicists calculated that sound waves can also carry mass through more conventional liquids, as well as solids and gases.
If this research holds up to further scrutiny, it could mean that physicists were wrong about something thought to be so simple that it's taught in middle school science classes.
Sound
In Memory
Hal Blaine
Hal Blaine, the Hall of Fame session drummer and virtual one-man soundtrack of the 1960s and '70s who played on the songs of Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley and the Beach Boys and laid down one of music's most memorable opening riffs on the Ronettes' "Be My Baby," died Monday.
Blaine died of natural causes at his home in Palm Desert, California, his son-in-law, Andy Johnson, told The Associated Press. He was 90.
The winner of a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award last year, Blaine's name was known by few outside the music industry, even in his prime.
But just about anyone with a turntable, radio or TV heard his drumming on songs that included Presley's "Return to Sender," the Byrds' "Mr. Tambourine Man," Barbra Streisand's "The Way We Were," the Beach Boys' "Good Vibrations," dozens of hits produced by Phil Spector, and the theme songs to "Batman," "The Partridge Family" and dozens of other shows.
As a member of the Los Angeles-based studio band "The Wrecking Crew," which also featured keyboard player Leon Russell, bassist Carol Kaye and guitarist Tommy Tedesco, Blaine forged a hard-earned virtuosity and versatility that enabled him to adapt quickly to a wide range of popular music. According to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, he played on 40 No. 1 hits, 150 top 10 songs.
Blaine also played on eight songs that won Grammys for record of the year, including Sinatra's "Strangers In the Night" and Simon & Garfunkel's "Bridge Over Troubled Water."
Out of so many notable sessions, his signature moment was the attention-grabbing "on the four" solo - Bum-ba-bum-BOOM - that launched the classic "Be My Baby," a hit for the Ronettes in 1963 that helped define Spector's overpowering "Wall of Sound" productions.
Few drum parts have been so widely imitated, from Billy Joel's "Say Goodbye to Hollywood" to The Jesus and Mary Chain's "Just Like Honey."
Blaine nicknamed himself and his peers "The Wrecking Crew," because they were seen by their more buttoned-down elders as destructive to the industry - an assertion that Kaye and others disputed. Many members of The Wrecking Crew worked nonstop for 20 years, sometimes as many as eight sessions a day, a pace that led to several marriages and divorces for Blaine.
The son of Jewish immigrants, Blaine was born Harold Simon Belsky in Holyoke, Massachusetts.
He was a professional by age 20 and within a few years switched from jazz to rock.
Blaine is survived by his daughter Michelle Blaine, and seven grandchildren.
Hal Blaine
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