Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Rachel Cooke: "Bret Easton Ellis: 'My ability to trigger millennials is insane'" (The Guardian)
The former enfant terrible of 80s literature is now a self-appointed scourge of victimhood and outrage. He talks about his first book for a decade.
Ellen E Jones: It's right to save our children from Dumbo and this song of slavery (The Guardian)
Kids can absorb racist stereotypes so it's good news that Disney is omitting Song of the South from its streaming site.
Joe Bob Briggs: Heartbreak Luxury Hotels (Taki's Magazine)
The lawyers and CPAs who run Elvis Presley Enterprises have been threatening the city of Memphis for the past two years with plans to dismantle Graceland-the most hallowed redneck house in the world-and move it to another continent.
Paul Waldman: Republicans everywhere are waging a desperate battle against democracy (Washington Post)
We are two years removed from an election in which the Republican nominee became president despite getting 3 million fewer votes than the Democrat, six months removed from a midterm election in which Democrats won sweeping victories at all levels, and 18 months away from the next presidential election. The Republican Party is in a panic - as well it should be, not just because its leader is extremely unpopular, but because its electoral coalition is shrinking as a proportion of the population. In response, Republicans are waging a scorched-earth campaign against democracy itself.
Alexandra Petri: You have to think about electability (Washington Post)
I am very excited about all the candidates. I am not talking about me! I just want you to think about the democratically engaged monstrous cretin given to making sexist remarks in business settings who has spilled some red sauce on his shirtfront and is not wiping it, this troll, this baby, this jerk of whom I completely disapprove, whose hateful ideas chip away at my spirit a little more each day I contemplate them! We should let him decide who the nominee is, that is all I am saying.
Jonathan Chait: Obama Had a Green New Deal, and It Worked. Let's Do That Again. (NY Mag)
The successes, by contrast, occurred with barely any fanfare. Obama's stimulus included $80 billion in green energy subsidies, the largest investment in renewable energy technology in American history. The stimulus was written and passed in mere weeks, during an atmosphere of economic crisis when its impact on a long-developing environmental problem hardly registered with the news media. (Its tax credits for wind and solar power were extended in 2015, as part of a low-profile bipartisan budget deal.)
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Presenting
Michael Egan
took the day off.
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
from Bruce
Anecdotes
United States Marine Sergeant Jacob Chadwick, who spent most of 2009 in Iraq and who has a young daughter named Ella Marie, needed a kidney transplant, and he received a kidney from a fellow Marine. On 1 August 2011 at Naval Air Station Pensacola in Florida, 2nd Lieutenant Patrick Wayland, age 24, suffered a cardiac arrest during a swim training exercise. He spent a few days in a hospital with his brain swelling, and on August 5, doctors pronounced him brain-dead. His parents wanted to donate his organs to save other people's lives. Lieutenant Jeff Moore, a Navy doctor, served as a witness to the document. Lieutenant Moore wondered whether 2nd Lieutenant Wayland's organs could save the life of another Marine. He used Google to search for "Marine needs a kidney" and found links to articles about Sergeant Chadwick. The parents of 2nd Lieutenant Wayland agreed that Sergeant Chadwick should get the kidney, and Lieutenant Moore called the San Diego hospital where Sergeant Jacob Chadwick got dialysis and asked, "How do I make sure Jacob gets this Marine's kidney?" Hospital staff checked to see if the kidney was a match; it was. The transplant occurred. Second Lieutenant John Silvestro, who was a friend of 2nd Lieutenant Patrick Wayland, said, "Patrick took an oath to serve his country. Few people are able to do that. Patrick, he would consider himself lucky to serve not only his country, but his fellow Marine." David Lewino, a transplant coordinator at UC San Diego Medical Center, said, "I've been doing this for 20 years and have never seen anything like it. That whole sense of Marine family - you hear about it, but when you see it first hand, you really believe it." Sergeant Chadwick said, "This is not how it usually happens. It was just meant to be. When you're on dialysis, you think everything's against you. Then something good like this happens."
In 2008, Nicole Goldenstein, age 23, gave her brother, Joey Goldenstein, age 25, her left kidney. Ever since the 6th grade, he had battled kidney disease. In July 2008, his kidneys were functioning at nine percent and he started dialysis. To survive, he needed a kidney transplant. Nicole said about her decision to donate one of her kidneys to her brother, a father of two, "I have a child of my own. I can't imagine him growing up without me." After the operation, she said, "Seeing him [Joey] play with his kids, knowing he'll have more time with his kids, giving him a better quality of life
it was really definitely worth it. He's smiling more. He's happy." It took a while for Nicole to recover from the surgery, but she is happy with her decision. Nicole said, "You're down a little bit, but not that long. It's definitely worth it. Joey's doing really, really good. He felt good right after the transplant. When you don't feel well for so long
his color is better, he starts getting an appetite, he just starts feeling better." She also encouraged other people to consider becoming a living donor of a kidney. She pointed out, "The biggest misconception is it's going to cost you money. The recipient's insurance covers all medical expenses. The only thing it costs you is a couple weeks off work." As far as living the rest of her life with one kidney, Nicole said, "I know I'll be perfectly fine with one kidney. It's not really that big of a deal." Washington University transplant surgeons performed the surgeries at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, Missouri.
Sometimes, only a heart transplant can save the life of a baby. Claude Bride was sitting by the hospital bed of her 14-month-old daughter, Margaux, when Margaux suffered a heart attack. Ms. Bride said, "The nurse began to scream for help and four doctors ran in with a defibrillator. As they ushered me out, I knew things didn't look good. I just stood there sobbing and calling out her name. It took three attempts before they restarted Margaux's heart. But the next day it stopped again and the doctors warned me that time was running out. She had been on the transplant register three months. Why would a new heart suddenly become available in the next few days?" Eighteen hours later, a new heart became available. In October 2011 Sir Magdi Yacoub performed the transplant, and Margaux recovered at the Royal Brompton Hospital in London, England. Ms. Bride said, "It is the most incredible feeling to hold her and see her smile. It is truly a miracle." Since birth, Margaux had had 17 operations on her heart. Unfortunately, for a child's heart to become available for transplant, a child must die. Margaux' heart came from a child in the mainland of Europe. Ms. Bride said that she would write that child's family to let them know that their child's heart saved the life of her daughter. She said, "I [
] hope it may bring them some comfort."
In 2004, Brooke Williams, age 27, of Gouverneur, New York, was so ill from acute leukemia that she was making plans for her funeral and trying to decide whom to ask to care for her six-year-old daughter. Then she received the good news that a donor had been found for her. The stem cells of Brooklyn firefighter John Jensen were a perfect match for Ms. Williams, and two years after his stem cells were surgically transfused into her body, she was cured of leukemia. She said, "Thank God it was him. If he hadn't done it, who knows what would have happened?" She added, "Him being a firefighter on top of that. I mean how much more could you do?" Mr. Jensen had signed up to be a donor while he was in the Fire Academy at Randall's Island. He said about his decision to become a donor, "I didn't give it a second thought. I just feel that I wouldn't be able to sleep at night knowing that I didn't help someone."
"We held hands and it took about an hour and a half for his blood to enter my system. His blood cells that carry the immune system found their way into my body."- Kevin Hearn, keyboardist for Barenaked Ladies (and leukemia survivor).
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Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
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In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Thanks to NHK (channel 28.3 in LA), watched Joko Akihito close out the Heisei era, live.
Reunite For 35th Anniversary
Spinal Tap
This year, fans of the whole genre of rock and roll are celebrating the 35th anniversary of the landmark mockumentary This Is Spinal Tap. At a screening over the weekend in New York as part of the Tribeca Film Festival, Spinal Tap themselves cranked it up to 11 once again as they reunited for a live performance.
Following the film and a Q&A, David St. Hubbins (Michael McKean), Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest), and Derek Smalls (Harry Shearer) got back together on the Beacon Theatre stage for an acoustic set. The trio joked through a performance of memorable tunes from Rob Reiner's heavy metal movie, including "Hell Hole", "Big Bottom", "Rainy Day Sun", and "Clam Caravan". Before closing with "Sex Farm", they welcomed out a surprise guest in Elvis Costello, who joined them for "Gimme Some Money".
Closing the set, Hubbins/McKean teased the crowd with more shows to come: "We will see you in another 35 years!"
Spinal Tap
Hundred Acre Wood Hit By Fire
Winnie the Pooh
Firefighters in England battled a blaze that broke out in the forest that inspired the Hundred Acre Wood, the setting for the "Winnie the Pooh" books.
Fire crews from several departments worked in "arduous conditions" Sunday night to put out the fire in Ashdown Forest in East Sussex, Hannah Scott-Youldon, assistant director for the East Sussex Fire and Rescue Service, wrote on Twitter.
The fire "took hold quickly" after the East Sussex Fire and Rescue Service began receiving calls detailing the forest fire around 9:30 p.m., incident commander Andrew Gausden said in a statement.
British author A. A. Milne, who is most famous for writing the "Winnie the Pooh" poems and books, bought Cotchford Farm in nearby Hartfield, East Sussex, as a country home for his family in 1925, according to Atlas Obscura.
Within Ashdown Forest is a landscape called the Five Hundred Acre Wood, and Milne published his first series of stories about Winnie the Pooh about a year after moving to the edge of the forest, according to Atlas Obscura.
Winnie the Pooh
Lost Financial Backing
Woodstock 50
Hours after Woodstock 50 investors announced they were pulling support for the festival, organizers confirmed they are "committed" to continue with the high-profile event.
"We are committed to ensuring that the 50th Anniversary of Woodstock is marked with a festival deserving of its iconic name and place in American history and culture," Woodstock 50 LLC said in a statement. "Although our financial partner is withdrawing, we will of course be continuing with the planning of the festival and intend to bring on new partners. We would like to acknowledge the State of New York and Schuyler County for all of their hard work and support. The bottom line is, there is going to be a Woodstock 50th Anniversary Festival, as there must be, and it's going to be a blast."
The pledge to push forward caps off a wild afternoon of headlines after investment arm Dentsu announced that Woodstock 50 - organized in part by Woodstock co-founder Michael Lang - would not proceed. "It's a dream for agencies to work with iconic brands and to be associated with meaningful movements," the company said in a statement Monday afternoon. "We have a strong history of producing experiences that bring people together around common interests and causes which is why we chose to be a part of the Woodstock 50th Anniversary Festival."
The festival has faced other issues in recent months. While its all-star lineup - featuring Jay-Z, Miley Cyrus, Dead & Company, the Raconteurs, Chance the Rapper and Run the Jewels, among others - was announced in early March, tickets did not go on sale; in addition, a planned Earth Day on-sale was postponed due to reported permit issues.
Woodstock 50
Dr. Phil Issues Letter Of Apology
Slippery Rock
Daytime television host Dr. Phil McGraw has issued a letter of apology to Slippery Rock University.
In a recent interview with People Magazine, Dr. Phil, host of the talk show of the same name, talked about the ongoing college admissions scandal.
Dr. Phil said: "They're not buying their kids an education. That's not what it's about. I don't think it has anything to do with the education. I think this is jewelry for a lot of these people. The kids are leaving high school, they don't want to say, 'My kid's going to the junior college.' They want to say, 'My kid's going to Harvard, my kid's going to USC or Yale.' I think it's bragging rights for them and they don't want to be the one parent that says, 'Well, yeah, my kid's going to, you know, Slippery Rock.'"
So, now, Dr. Phil is apologizing. The university posted the letter to their Facebook page.
"Please accept my apology for referring to 'Slippery Rock' during a recent interview as the antithesis of the kind of school parents caught up in the college admissions scandal would be bragging about their children attending.
Slippery Rock
Factcheckers Say
10,000
Donald Trump (R-Rancid) has made more than 10,000 false or misleading claims since he became president in January 2017, according to a count by factcheckers at the Washington Post.
Trump's strike rate of "alternative facts" - a phrase made infamous by senior adviser Kellyanne Conway - has increased rapidly in recent months, the paper said on Monday.
Whereas it took Trump 601 days to make 5,000 false and misleading claims, equivalent to eight a day, it was only another 226 days before he smashed the 10,000 barrier, an average of nearly 23 claims a day, the Post reported.
The distinct worsening of the problem coincided with the publication of special counsel Robert Mueller's report on Russian election interference, a partial government shutdown over border wall funding and a series of freewheeling campaign rallies during the midterm elections.
Trump's frequent tweets and interviews with Fox News are also rich wells of misinformation. About one-fifth of his false or misleading claims are about immigration, the Post said.
10,000
Women Demand Seat
Afghanistan
For four hours, Khadeja begged her in-laws to take her to the hospital. The skin on her face and neck was peeling. The pain was excruciating. Her husband had thrown a pot of scalding water on her face and upper body.
She eventually received treatment, but scar tissue on her neck makes breathing difficult and her hands are misshapen. Her husband - a man she was forced to marry at 16 by her father - was never held accountable. Such impunity for violence against women remains pervasive in Afghanistan.
The suffering of young women like Khadeja is why women rights activists say they are demanding a seat at the table in negotiations between the government and the Taliban over peace and Afghanistan's future.
Women have made gains since the 2001 fall of the Taliban, but the country remains among the worst places in the world to be a woman. Activists fear the advances they have achieved will be bargained away in negotiations, with pressure heavy for a deal as the United States seeks to end its military involvement in the country.
The Taliban were notorious for their repression of women during their rule, including banning education for girls and imposing the all-encompassing burqa on all women. But activists are just as worried about the other side: Afghanistan's leadership since the Taliban's ouster has been dominated by conservatives, warlords and strongmen whose attitudes toward women are often little different.
Afghanistan
Melting 10 Times Faster Than Expected
Ross Ice Shelf
The world's largest ice shelf is melting 10 times faster than expected due to solar heating of the surrounding Antarctic Ocean, scientists have warned.
The Ross Ice Shelf covers an area roughly the size of France and is several hundred metres thick, with 90 per cent of the ice below sea level.
A study by an international team of scientists, carried out over four years, collected data on how the northwest portion of the ice shelf interacts with the ocean beneath it.
It found the ice is melting much more rapidly than previously thought, due to inflowing warm water.
"The stability of ice shelves is generally thought to be related to their exposure to warm deep ocean water, but we've found that solar heated surface water also plays a crucial role in melting ice shelves," said the study's lead author, Dr Craig Stewart from the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) in New Zealand, and who conducted the work while a PhD student at the University of Cambridge in the UK.
Ross Ice Shelf
Trained By Russia's Military?
Whales
Norwegian fishermen and scientists say a white whale wearing a strange harness that harassed boats in the Arctic recently may have been trained by Russia's military. Russia has previously acknowledged training sea mammals for special operations in the frigid Arctic, where the country has a major military base not far from the territory of key NATO member Norway.
According to Britain's The Guardian newspaper, Norwegian state broadcaster NRK reported the unusual behavior of the animal last week and showed video of the beluga whale swimming alongside a fishing vessel and repeatedly nudging it.
"We were going to put out nets when we saw a whale swimming between the boats," NRK quoted fisherman Joar Hesten as saying. "It came over to us, and as it approached, we saw that it had some sort of harness on it."
The harness was removed from the animal by a team from the Norwegian Director of Fisheries. Jψrgen Ree Wiig, from the agency, sent CBS News images and video of the whale and the harness, which has a logo on it reading, "Equipment of St. Petersburg." The canvas straps appeared slightly worn and there was visible rust on the metal screws holding the apparatus together.
There was nothing about the harness to identify it has having any links, specifically, to Russia's military, and the clip with the logo on it was written in English. But Norwegian scientists suspect a link to the Russian navy, nonetheless.
Whales
World's Most Costly Painting
'Salvator Mundi'
Later this year, the Louvre in Paris will host an exhibition of masterpieces by the Italian painter Leonardo da Vinci to mark his death 500 years ago in France.
But the work that in recent months has been the intense focus of scrutiny by the media and da Vinci specialists, may not be on show.
In 2017, "Salvator Mundi" was sold at auction by Christie's as a work by da Vinci for a record $450 million. But it has not been displayed in public since, triggering doubts about its ownership, its whereabouts and its authenticity.
The painting, a portrait of Jesus, was to go on display at the Louvre Abu Dhabi in September last year. But its unveiling was postponed by the museum without any explanation.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the buyer of the picture was Saudi prince Badr ben Abdallah, acting in the name of powerful Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman.
'Salvator Mundi'
In Memory
John Singleton
Director John Singleton, who made one of Hollywood's most memorable debuts with the Oscar-nominated "Boyz N the Hood" and continued over the following decades to probe the lives of black communities in his native Los Angeles and beyond, has died. He was 51.
Singleton was in his early 20s, just out of the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts, when he wrote, directed and produced "Boyz N the Hood." Based on Singleton's upbringing and shot in his old neighborhood, the low-budget production starred Cuba Gooding Jr. and Ice Cube and centered on three friends in South Central Los Angeles, where college aspirations competed with the pressures of gang life. "Boyz N the Hood" was a critical and commercial hit, given a 20-minute standing ovation at the Cannes Film Festival and praised as a groundbreaking extension of rap to the big screen, a realistic and compassionate take on race, class, peer pressure and family. Singleton would later call it a "rap album on film."
For many, the 1991 release captured the explosive mood in Los Angeles in the months following the videotaped police beating of Rodney King. "Boyz N the Hood" also came out at a time when, thanks to the efforts to Spike Lee and others, black films were starting to get made by Hollywood after a long absence. Singleton became the first black director to receive an Academy Award nomination, an honor he would say was compensation for the academy's snubbing Lee and "Do the Right Thing" two years earlier, and was nominated for best screenplay. ("The Silence of the Lambs" won in both categories). At 24, he was also the youngest director nominee in Oscar history.
In 2002, "Boyz N the Hood' was added to the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress, which called it "an innovative look at life and the tough choices present for kids growing up in South Central Los Angeles."
None of Singleton's subsequent movies received the acclaim of "Boyz N the Hood" and he was criticized at times for turning characters into mouthpieces for political and social messages. But he attracted talent ranging from Tupac Shakur to Don Cheadle and explored themes of creative expression ("Poetic Justice"), identity ("Higher Learning") and the country's racist past, notably in "Rosewood," based on a murderous white rampage against a black community in Florida in 1923. He also made the coming-of-age story "Baby Boy," a remake of the action film "Shaft" and an installment in the "Fast and Furious" franchise, "2 Fast 2 Furious." More recent projects included the FX crime drama "Snowfall," which he helped create. Starring Damson Idris, "Snowfall" returned Singleton to the Los Angeles of his youth and the destructive effects of the rise of crack cocaine.
Singleton was married twice, and had five children. Besides his career in movies, Singleton also directed the video for Michael Jackson's "Remember the Time," which included Eddie Murphy and Magic Johnson. He cast hip-hop artists and other musicians in many of his films, including Ice Cube in "Boyz N the Hood," Janet Jackson and Shakur in "Poetic Justice" and Tyrese Gibson in "Baby Boy."
Singleton's early success didn't shield him from creative conflicts or frustration with Hollywood studios. He blamed the commercial failure of "Rosewood" on lack of support from Warner Bros. He fought with producer Scott Rudin during the making of "Shaft" and was furious when Rudin brought in Richard Price to revise the script. He had planned to direct a biopic about Shakur, but quit after clashing with Morgan Creek Productions. In 2014, he chastised the industry for "refusing to let African-Americans direct black-themed films," but Singleton was pleased in recent years by the emergence of Ava DuVernay, Barry Jenkins, Jordan Peele and others.
John Singleton
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