from Bruce
Anecdotes
Activism
• Jackie Robinson, the African American who integrated modern major-league baseball with the Brooklyn Dodgers, was an activist long before he became famous. As a boy, he and his friends would sometimes go to the movie theater and sit in the white-people-only seats. When that happened, the police would arrive to get them out of those seats. Later, while he was playing with the Kansas City Monarchs in the Negro Leagues, his team’s tour bus pulled up at a gas station in Oklahoma. African Americans were allowed to buy gas there, but the men’s restroom bore this sign: “WHITE MEN ONLY.” Mr. Robinson walked to the restroom, and the gas station owner told him that he couldn’t use that restroom. Mr. Robinson then said, “Take that hose out of the tank.” The gas station owner did not want to lose any business, so he allowed Mr. Robinson to use the restroom. After that, the Kansas City Monarchs never bought gas at a gas station where they weren’t allowed to use the restroom. As Mr. Robinson explained, “This is America, man.”
• Women’s sports and women athletes have not always been respected. For example, in the 1960s (well before Title 9) at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, Catherine L. Brown used to teach field hockey on a field that was also used by ROTC cadets. Sometimes, the ROTC cadets would act as if the women athletes were invisible and march onto the field—even during games. On one occasion when this happened, the ROTC cadets were standing at attention—meaning that they could not move—so Ms. Brown ordered the game to continue, and she rewarded each woman athlete who managed to hit the legs of an ROTC cadet with the ball.
• For a very long time, the Kenilworth Hotel in Miami, Florida, did not allow Jews to stay there. Finally, in 1960, some Jewish sportswriters covering the New York Yankees’ spring training trip were allowed to integrate the hotel’s guest list. Leonard Shecter, a man with a sharp mind and acid tongue from the New York Post, hired a bellman to walk throughout the hotel and yell, “Paging Stanley Isaacs.”
Age
• In 1948, African-American pitcher Satchel Paige joined the Cleveland Indians and became the oldest rookie in the major leagues at age 42. He had made a name for himself in the Negro Leagues, but until Jackie Robinson broke the color line, no black athletes played in the major leagues. Indians shortstop and manager Lou Boudreau strongly supported integrating the major leagues, but he wondered whether Satchel was too old to play major-league baseball. Therefore, Mr. Boudreau put Mr. Paige through a workout to test his skills. First, Mr. Boudreau caught several of Mr. Paige’s pitches; nearly all were in the strike zone. Next, Mr. Boudreau, who was almost a .400 hitter at the time, tried to hit Mr. Paige’s pitches. Mr. Paige threw 20 pitches, and Mr. Boudreau failed to make solid contact with any of them. Shortly thereafter, the Indians offered Mr. Paige a contract. By the way, Mr. Paige’s career as a major-league pitcher was long-lived. In 1965, when Mr. Paige was 59 years old, Charles O. Finley, owner of the Kansas City Athletics, brought Mr. Paige in to pitch three innings as a way to boost attendance. In three innings, Mr. Paige allowed one hit and no runs, leaving the game with a 1-0 lead; unfortunately, the Athletics lost the game, 5-2, to the Boston Red Sox.
• Elwin “Preacher” Roe was one sports star who knew when it was time to quit. He was a good pitcher for the Dodgers in the 1940s and 1950s, and when catcher Roy Campanella knew that Preacher was pitching, he would say, “They can cut the middle of the plate out and throw it away—ol’ Preach ain’t gonna use it.” Preach had more than control; he also had a good fastball that he called his burner. However, one day he was on the mound facing Stan Musial. Preach says, “I was old, I was tired, and I was facing the best hitter in the National League. I reached back to get the last bit of good stuff I had. My burner got away from me and was heading right for Stan’s head.” Then came the moment when Preach knew it was time to quit: “Fellows, I had time to yell ‘Look out!’ three times before it got there.”
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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: "Where in the World is Poison Ivy Rorschach?"
Album: VIVA LEPETOMANE!
Artist: Terminal Sunburn
Artist Location: New Brunswick, New Jersey
Info: “We’re not really a surf band (except for when we are).”
Info:
“Here's a tune that instrumentally wonders where the heart and soul of The Cramps has been spending her time. One would assume California, no? Anyhoo, I don’t own the pics. They do rule, though. The song is all Terminal Sunburn.”
“Here’s the video for ‘The Right Coast.’ I claim no copyright over the footage. It's public domain stuff, featuring the Malibu Mermaid herself, Adele Dolman, frolicking while looking stunning. The song happens to be mine, though.”
Price: Name Your Price (Includes FREE) for track or for six-track album (‘It's halfway to an album, I suppose.’)
Genre: Instrumental Surf.
Links:
VIVA LEPETOMANE!
Terminal Sunburn on Bandcamp
Terminal Sunburn 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
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
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
Running late.
9/11 Charities
Jon Stewart
Jon Stewart and Pete Davidson are creating a star-studded comedy show at Madison Square Garden on Sept. 12 to honor the 20-year anniversary of 9/11. The show will benefit 9/11 charities.
The show, titled “NYC Still Rising After 20 Years,” will feature Amy Schumer, Bill Burr, Colin Jost, Colin Quinn, Dave Attell, Dave Chappelle, Jay Pharoah, Jimmy Fallon, John Mulaney, Michael Che, Rony Chieng, Tom Segura and Wanda Sykes, as well as Stewart and Davidson themselves. Tickets will be available on Ticket Master starting Friday.
“We wanted to put on a fun celebration to honor this great city’s resilience. It’s nice to be able to do this with friends and people we love,” said Stewart, former host of Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show,” in a statement Monday.
He and Davidson were joined by Dixon Talent’s James Dixon, WME’s Mike Berkowitz, Brillstein Entertainment Partners’ Tim Sarkes and Live Nation’s Geof Wills to create the event.
Jon Stewart
Comics Creators
Di$ney
Behind each and every one of Marvel Studios and DC Entertainment’s comic book adaptations are teams of comic book creators whose ideas laid the groundwork for what would eventually become the films and TV shows powering the megacorporations’ respective multi-billion dollar entertainment franchises. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean these creators are getting paid anywhere near what they deserve.
It’s been largely understood that most creators at the Big Two and in mainstream comics are generally “work-for-hire” contractors who have no ownership of the intellectual property they create for the publishers. Recently though, more and more comics creators have been speaking publicly about the experience of watching their ideas be capitalized on by some of the largest corporate juggernauts, only for the creators themselves to receive little to none of the financial profit generated by the properties derived from their work. While there have been multiple stories about comics creators getting the cold shoulder both from the comics companies and the film studios they’ve been connected to, a new report from the Guardian lays out in detail how the situations at Disney/Marvel and DC/Warner Bros./AT&T have been particularly galling.
According to the Guardian’s sources, Marvel’s standard approach to compensating writers or artists when their work appears in a Marvel Studios film is a flat $5,000 check along with an invitation to the film premiere. Writer Ed Brubaker—who along with artist Steve Epting, colorist Frank D’Armata, and letterer Randy Gentile, crafted the Captain America comics run that defined the Winter Soldier—previously spoke fairly openly about how he basically made nothing from the character’s jump to the MCU in multiple films and his own streaming series.
Brubaker’s also spoken about how he wasn’t actually invited to the premiere events for Captain America: The Winter Soldier, but the deeper issue with Marvel’s approach to compensating creators whose work is adapted lies in how the studio allegedly does not make a point of letting all of its talent know about the larger process. Aside from one-off checks and premiere invites, Marvel also offers a “special character contract” to certain creators guaranteeing different degrees of remuneration in the event of their work being adapted. The problem is, these contracts aren’t offered to creators as a rule, meaning that individuals have to take it upon themselves to ask for it, and there’s no guarantee the company will come through.
Di$ney
San Sebastian Film Fest Lifetime Achievement
Johnny Depp
In a move certain to spark controversy, and a potential backlash, Spain’s San Sebastian International Film Festival will honor actor Johnny Depp with its Donostia Award, a lifetime achievement honor that recognizes “outstanding contributions to the film world.”
Depp, inarguably one of the world’s most successful and well-known actors, is these days often seen as publicly toxic after his failed libel suit against British tabloid The Sun, which ended with the courts upholding the paper’s description of him as a “wife beater” and the ruling judge indicating he believed Depp had assaulted ex-wife Amber Heard on multiple occasions. The ruling led directly to Warner Bros. dumping Depp from its Fantastic Beasts franchise and replacing him with Mads Mikkelsen in the role of evil wizard Grindelwald. More recently, Minamata, a passion project for Depp in which he plays an American photographer who brought the world’s attention to a devastating environmental disaster in Japan, was reportedly buried by MGM to avoid the controversy swirling around its star.
But all that hasn’t deterred San Sebastian, which, unveiling the Donostia Award on Monday, called Depp “one of contemporary cinema’s most talented and versatile actors.” Depp will receive his Donostia Award in San Sebastian on Wednesday, Sept. 22.
San Sebastian introduced the Donostia Award in 1986, with acting legend Gregory Peck as its first recipient. Previous winners have also included Glenn Ford (1987), Bette Davies (1989), Lauren Bacall (1992), Anthony Hopkins (1998) and Glenn Close (2011). The festival often names multiple winners in a single year, honoring both Antonio Banderas and Meryl Streep in 2008, or Penélope Cruz, Donald Sutherland and director Costa-Gavras (Missing) in 2019.
Johnny Depp
Add A Cat?
Dating Profiles
If you’ve used a dating app, you’ll know the importance of choosing good profile pics.
These photos don’t just relay attractiveness; a recent study suggested that 43% of people think they can get a sense of someone’s personality by their picture. You might guess that someone who has included a photo of themselves hiking is an outdoorsy type of person.
But as scientists who study human-animal interactions, we wanted to know what this meant for pet owners – in particular, male cat owners.
Prior studies suggested that women do judge a potential male partner based on whether he has pets. While they favor men with dogs, the results showed that they also give men with cats an edge over non-pet owners.
Most of the women found the men holding cats to be less dateable. This result surprised us, since previous studies had shown that women found men with pets to have higher potential as partners. They also thought the men holding cats were less extroverted and more neurotic, agreeable and open. Importantly, they saw these men as less masculine, too.
Dating Profiles
Complaint Settled
Dr. Rick Bright
The U.S. government has agreed to compensate a scientist who filed a whistleblower complaint that said former President Donald Trump (R-Lock Him Up)'s administration botched its early response to the coronavirus pandemic, the scientist's lawyer said on Monday.
Dr. Rick Bright, formerly of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, reached a settlement with the agency, lawyer Debra Katz said.
Neither side disclosed specifics of the settlement, but Katz said "Dr. Bright has been compensated to the fullest extent allowed by the law" and "will receive back pay and compensatory damages."
The U.S. Office of Special Counsel, an independent government agency that hears whistleblower complaints, said in a statement that it helped facilitate a "mutually agreeable resolution."
Bright said he was ousted from BARDA in part because he resisted efforts to push the drug hydroxychloroquine as a cure for COVID-19, something advocated by Trump himself.
Dr. Rick Bright
Contractors Stuck
Dubai
As the U.S. brings home its remaining troops and abandons its bases, experts say the chaotic departure of the Pentagon’s logistics army lays bare an uncomfortable truth about a privatized system long susceptible to mismanagement — one largely funded by American taxpayers but outside the purview of American law.
“It's the same situation that affects foreign contractors all over the world, people who have little understanding of where they're going and very uncertain relationships once they arrive determining their legal status and movements,” said Anthony Cordesman, a national security analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
While it’s unclear just how many remain stuck abroad after the evacuation, an Associated Press journalist saw at least a dozen Filipino contractors for engineering and construction company Fluor stranded at the Movenpick hotel in Bur Dubai, an older neighborhood of the city-state along the Dubai Creek.
The U.S. military's Central Command declined to comment on private security contractors, referring all questions to their companies. The U.S. military’s contracting office and the Philippines Consulate in Dubai did not respond to repeated requests for comment on the stranded Filipino contractors.
Dubai
Rejects Germ Theory
Meet The Stupid
Listen up, sheeple: COVID-19 doesn't exist. Viruses don't cause disease, and they aren't contagious. Those doctors and health experts who say otherwise don't know what they're talking about; the real experts are on Facebook. And they're saying it loud and clear: the pandemic is caused by your own deplorable life choices, like eating meat or pasta. Any "COVID" symptoms you might experience are actually the result of toxic lifestyle exposures—and you have only yourself to blame.
As idiotic and abhorrent as all of the above is, it's not an exaggeration of the messages being spread by a growing group of Darwin Award finalists on the Internet—that is, germ theory denialists. Yes, you read that correctly: germ theory denialists—also known as people who don't believe that pathogenic viruses and bacteria can cause disease.
As an extension of their rejection of basic scientific and clinical data collected over centuries, they deny the existence of the devastating pandemic that has sickened upwards of 200 million people worldwide, killing more than 4 million.
Germ theory denialism isn't new. It can be traced back to the origin of germ theory itself, often to two contemporaries of Louis Pasteur: Claude Bernard and Antoine Béchamp. Both came up with opposing hypotheses to Pasteur's enduring germ theory. Bernard proposed the concept of milieu intérieur, which suggests that the body's internal environment—or terrain—maintains its equilibrium. The state of the terrain, rather than the presence of pathogens, ultimately dictates whether disease will develop (which is not an entirely crazy idea, given what we now know about the microbiome and the immunocompromised). Meanwhile, Béchamp—considered a bitter crank and rival of Pasteur—suggested that pathogenic bacteria are produced by human tissue as a response to a harmful change in the terrain. Thus, bacteria do not cause disease; they are merely a self-created symptom of it—which is clearly just incorrect.
While the depths of human stupidity on display across the Internet rival that of the Marianas Trench, the audacious ignorance on display in this group is truly stunning. In the group's current take on germ theory denialism, bacteria are merely scavengers and are a symptom of disease. Viruses are considered cellular debris and cannot cause disease or transmit from one person to another.
Meet The Stupid
Carnivorous Plant Hiding in Plain Sight
Triantha occidentalis
In the boglands of the northwestern United States and Canada, an unassuming plant has been trapping and eating insects, totally unbeknownst to science. Today, researchers report that Triantha occidentalis is now the 12th known independent evolution of carnivory—the consumption of animal flesh—in the plant kingdom.
Different families of plants developed a taste for meat separately, and T. occidentalis, in the order Alismatales, now adds its name to the 630-odd plant species that eat animals, usually because their local soils are nutrient-poor, particularly lacking nitrogen and phosphorous, important nutrients for carrying out photosynthesis. This plant was targeted because a previous genetic analysis showed it lacked a gene that is often missing in carnivorous plants, tipping off the researchers that T. occidentalis may be more than it seemed.
Though T. occidentalis lives relatively close to urban centers, it was not officially recognized as carnivorous until now. The research team, hailing from the University of Wisconsin and the University of British Columbia in Canada, determined that the plant traps insects on its stem using specialized sticky hairs that aren’t strong enough to catch bigger, pollinating insects. The new finding is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“Before our finding, over the past two decades, only one new example of carnivory has been found. I think people tended to think sticky hairs on T. occidentalis were for defense and didn’t link them with carnivory,” Qianshi Lin, a botanist at the University of British Columbia and lead author of the new study, said in an email.
To test whether the plant was indeed carnivorous or not, Lin’s team stuck dead fruit flies—nourished on a nitrogen isotope—to the sides of the plant, where sticky hairs would hold fast to the light insects. The team suspected that if they then found the same nitrogen isotope in the plant’s tissue, they could reasonably infer that the plant had consumed it from the insects. Based on models developed by co-author Tom Givnish, a botanist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the team determined that as much as 64% of the plants’ nitrogen intake was from insects, which is similar to levels seen in other carnivorous plants.
Triantha occidentalis
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