from Bruce
Anecdotes
Food
• During the first nine days of the Jewish month of Av, Jews must not eat meat — this is a sign of mourning for the destruction of the temple. However, a sickly child appeared before Rabbi Hayyim of Brisk to ask if he might be permitted to eat meat during the fast days because of his illness. The rabbi replied, “Not only are you permitted to eat meat, but also you must tell your mother that she is permitted to eat meat.” When the rabbi’s followers later asked why he had said this, Rabbi Hayyim said, “A sickly child is a sign that his mother is also sick and needs nourishment.”
• Mulla Nasrudin attended a dinner party at which the host ordered his servant to bring all kinds of good dishes, including figs boiled in milk, which Nasrudin was particularly fond of. The servant brought all the dishes his master had ordered, but forgot the figs boiled in milk. After eating, the host asked Nasrudin to read from the Koran. Nasrudin turned to the passage beginning, “By the figs and the olives and Mount Sinai …” and read “By the olives and Mount Sinai ….” The host interrupted, “You forgot the figs.” “No,” replied Nasrudin. “Your servant did.”
• Each Saturday evening, Rev. William G. Campbell of St. Savior’s Anglican Church in Vermilion, Alberta, prepares the unleavened bread for the celebration of the Eucharist on Sunday. He always makes sure to set aside some of the crusts for his wife to use when she prepares Caesar salads. Whenever Rev. Campbell is asked how he spends Saturday evenings, he replies, “I render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s.”
• Because an aged Catholic priest had become deaf, people going to confession were accustomed to write out their sins on a piece of paper and pass the paper to him in the confessional. One day, a sinner slipped a piece of paper to the priest. The priest read the paper — “Fish sticks, two cans of beans, bread, milk” — then passed the note back to the sinner. The sinner looked at the note, then exclaimed, “Mother of God, I’ve left my sins at the grocery store.”
• At a visit to Pendle Hill, Bacon Evans was served a very small, very simple meal — watery soup and a few crackers — so that the money thus saved could be used to feed hungry people. The other people present at the dinner knew that Mr. Evans was a courteous man, and they wondered what he could find to compliment about so poor a meal. Mr. Evans rose to the occasion — he told his hosts, “That soup was salted just perfectly!”
• A baron went to visit Zen master Hakuin to learn what he taught. A peasant woman had just delivered some peasant food — millet cakes — to Hakuin, and he offered the baron some of the millet cakes. However, the baron was accustomed to rich food and could not bring himself to eat peasant food. Hakuin told the baron, “Force yourself to eat it; you will get to know the misery of the common folk. My teaching is nothing but this.”
• According to an ancient story, Abraham invited a stranger into his tent for a meal. However, the stranger began to curse God, so Abraham quickly threw him out of the tent. That night, Abraham prayed, “Today, I defended Your Honor and Your Glory by sending away a blasphemer who cursed You.” God replied, “This man has cursed Me for 50 years, and yet I have given him food every day. Couldn’t you put up with him for one meal?”
• During a famine, Monobazus, the king of Adiabene, spent all his money to feed the hungry. His relatives told him that he was squandering his money, but he replied, “All of our ancestors stored up treasures of money for this world. I also stored up by using my money to feed the hungry, but I have stored up a treasure for my soul.”
• Dr. Louis Finkelstein, chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, kept a strictly kosher diet. While in Paris, he and a group of rabbis ate only in kosher restaurants. On leaving Paris, Dr. Finkelstein joked, “I can’t understand all this fuss people make about French cooking. We have the same things at home.”
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© Copyright Bruce D. Bruce; All Rights Reserved
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Presenting
Michael Egan
U.S.A. said:
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION
BANDCAMP MUSIC
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION OF BANDCAMP MUSIC
Music: "Happy Independence Day"
Album: This track is a single.
Artist: Josie Bello
Artist Location: Huntington, New York
Info: released June 14, 2021
words & music: Josie Bello
Produced by Mike Nugent
Engineered by Kevin Kelly
lead vocal, piano: Josie Bello
acoustic guitar, background vocals: Shawn Cullinane
bass: Frank Bello
drums: Shawn Murray
electric guitar: Mike Nugent
Price: $1 (USD) for track
Genre: Protest Song.
Links:
“Happy Independence Day”
Josie Bello on Bandcamp
Josie Bello on YouTube
Other Links:
David Bruce's Amazon Author Page
David Bruce's Smashwords Page
David Bruce's Blog #1
David Bruce's Blog #2
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David Bruce's Apple iBookstore
David Bruce has over 140 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
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 back door is firmly shut tonight.
Day 1
Peabody Awards
The Peabody Awards on Monday began unveiling its winners honoring the most compelling and empowering stories in broadcasting and streaming media in 2020, with Apple TV+ series Ted Lasso and CBS’ The Late Show With Stephen Colbert on the list.
A total of 30 awards, handed out annually via at Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia, will be revealed daily this week through Thursday in virtual presentations.
There were 60 nominees this year, the Peabodys’ 81st, selected by 19 jurors who considered 1,300 entries across TV, podcasts/radio and the web in entertainment, news, documentary, arts, children’s/youth, public service and multimedia programming.
Last week, the Peabodys gave Ava DuVernay’s Array its Institutional Award, Sam Pollard the Peabody Career Achievement Award, and PBS and CNN anchor Judy Woodruff the Peabody Award for Journalistic Integrity.
With filming restrictions in place, Stephen Colbert decided to move production of his CBS Late Show to his home outside of Charleston, a remarkably successful transformation of the late-night television model by a host inviting us into his home, rather than his typical comforting presence in our living rooms and bedrooms. Amidst suffering in a global pandemic, a public fed up with police violence against African Americans, and a morally contemptuous president fighting for his political life, Colbert’s kindness, gentle spirit, and deeply felt ethical nature provided a nightly salve the nation desperately needed.
Peabody Awards
Frequent Anonymous Source
TV Dinner Heir
Tucker Carlson (R-Trust Fund Baby) is a frequent source for the journalists he claims to loathe, according to a new report by The New York Times.
The media-excoriating Fox "News" host has anonymously shared gossip with at least 16 journalists, the Times says, spilling juicy details about the Trump administration, Fox News, and himself.
“In Trump’s Washington, Tucker Carlson is a primary supersecret source,” Michael Wolff, author of the early Trump-era exposé Fire and Fury, has written. “I know this because I know what he has told me, and I can track his exquisite, too-good-not-to-be-true gossip through unsourced reports and as it often emerges into accepted wisdom.”
It’s an incongruous role for Carlson, considering how mercilessly he criticizes the press. On his show, he regularly denounces the mainstream news media as biased, dishonest, and slavishly loyal to left-wing interests. In April, he compared the media to a lynch mob.
“It’s so unknown in the general public how much he plays both sides,” one unnamed reporter told the newspaper.
TV Dinner Heir
Not A John Forsythe Fan
Joan Collins
Joan Collins has dubbed her Dynasty co-star John Forsythe a “misogynist p***k”.
Collins played the ruthless and scheming businesswoman Alexis Carrington on the era-defining Eighties soap, with Forsythe portraying her oil baron ex-husband Blake. But Collins has now confirmed that the pair’s on-screen animosity was replicated behind-the-scenes, too.
While appearing on Piers Morgan’s Life Stories on Sunday (20 June), Collins said that it was “absolutely” true that they feuded.
“I didn’t like him because he was a misogynist p***k,” Collins said.
“[Forsythe] had it in his contract that he always had to have $5,000 (£3,600) an episode more than anybody else in the cast, and that in any publicity that went out about the show, he always had to be front and centre,” Collins told Morgan. “They were so misogynistic they allowed this to happen.”
Joan Collins
Netflix
Spielberg
What a difference two years and a global pandemic make. Steven Spielberg, who a couple of years ago was quoted — his camp maintains he never said it or anything he might have said was severely taken out of context — drawing a clear line between theatrically released films and streamer films, has berthed his Amblin Partners into a partnership with Netflix that will cover multiple new feature films per year. It shows once again the Netflix-led progress toward dissolving the lines between streamed and theatrical films and symbolically it is a big deal for Netflix’s Ted Sarandos and Scott Stuber.
The Netflix deal will co-exist side by side with the one Spielberg and Amblin have at Universal Pictures. Neither will have first shot at Amblin properties; Spielberg will make some films for Universal, and others to be made for Netflix. The expectation is that Amblin will generate multiple films per year for Netflix, which has a voracious appetite for content and releases a new film per week. Amblin’s Universal deal was extended last December, at which time comments reflected the possibility that a streaming deal might be in the offing.
The two companies have been collaborating for some time in an informal capacity. Netflix released the Amblin-produced, Aaron Sorkin-directed The Trial of the Chicago 7, a film that garnered six Oscar nominations. Netflix stepped up to acquire to finance and distribute Maestro, the film that Bradley Cooper is directing and starring in on the iconic composer Leonard Bernstein. That film is in pre-production.
One area the director will not revisit is Jaws. Deadline heard recently that Universal broached the subject to reboot Spielberg’s breakout classic, with Spielberg producing, and the answer was a firm no. Some at Universal and Amblin said this was already known and not a recent conversation. Whatever, while Jaws sequels fell far short of Spielberg’s original, some films should just be left alone and appreciated in their original form. Spielberg directed a number of them, including E.T. and Schindler’s List.
Spielberg
Suddenly Reluctant To Condemn
Political Violence
The Republican Party has a problem with political violence: It’s not sure whether it’s for it or against it.
In the first days after a mob loyal to former President Trump stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 to try to block Congress from certifying President Biden's election, GOP leaders delivered a sensible, unified response: There’s no place in our constitutional system for that kind of violence.
Since January, though, some leading Republicans have been backsliding — offering excuses for the insurgents who sought to overturn the election through extralegal means.
Rep. Andrew S. Clyde of Georgia has likened the forced entrance of the Capitol to “a normal tourist visit." Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar complained last month that the FBI was “harassing peaceful patriots” by investigating the events. Twenty-one House Republicans voted against awarding a medal to the Capitol Police for attempting to defend the building; several said they objected to calling the riot an “insurrection.”
Last week, Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin defended the protesters, too. “The vast majority of the crowd, they were in a jovial mood,” he said last week. “They weren’t violent.”
Political Violence
Crowds Gather
Stonehenge
Dozens of people have ignored advice not to travel to Stonehenge for the annual summer solstice celebrations, which were cancelled Monday due to coronavirus concerns.
English Heritage, which looks after the Neolithic monument, had planned a live feed of the sunrise at Stonehenge for the second year in a row. But the organization said that program had to be interrupted because of safety concerns after “a number of people have chosen to disregard our request to not travel to the stones this morning.”
Thousands of people who tuned in to watch the sunrise at the stones online ended up watching pre-recorded footage before the live feed returned around 5 a.m.
Video from Britain’s PA news agency and elsewhere showed dozens of people gathering inside the stone circle, with some scaling a low fence to climb inside the restricted area to reach the stones. Some were seen dancing and others held a banner that read “Standing for Stonehenge.”
The summer solstice typically draws tens of thousands of people to the stone circle in southern England to celebrate the longest day of the year.
Stonehenge
Devastated Penguin Population
Tasmanian Devils
A project to preserve endangered Tasmanian devils on a small island has backfired after the predators killed seabirds in large numbers, a conservation group says.
A small number of devils were shipped to Maria Island east of Tasmania, Australia, in 2012.
The move aimed to protect the mammals from a deadly facial cancer that had driven them towards extinction.
The devils have recovered since, but the island project has come at a cost.
Citing a government survey, BirdLife Tasmania said a population of little penguins that numbered 3,000 breeding pairs in 2012 had disappeared from the island.
Tasmanian Devils
150,000 Olympic Condoms
Tokyo Games
The Olympic Village, purportedly a hotspot for sex and carousing among athletes, will be stripped of its party atmosphere at the Tokyo Games as organizers continue to take steps to curb the spread of COVID-19.
Condoms will be distributed to the athletes — but not until they’re leaving the Tokyo Games. Athletes will be allowed to bring alcohol into the village — but allowed to consume it only if they’re alone in their rooms.
The distribution of condoms at the Olympics began in 1988 to raise awareness of HIV and AIDS, and the number condoms given away at subsequent Games has skyrocketed. From 8,500 at the Seoul Games in 1988 to 450,000 at the Rio Games in 2016 Olympics, where Brazilian officials sought to curb the spread of the Zika virus.
In Rio, giant green vending machines containing the condoms were situated in the food hall and various lounges around the Village, keeping alive the reputation of the Olympic village and athletes’ activity when they’re not competing.
In Tokyo, 150,000 condoms will be given out, but only as a parting gift. More than 11,000 athletes are expected.
Tokyo Games
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