from Bruce
Anecdotes
Prejudice
• Ty Cobb may have been a great baseball player, but he was a mean baseball player—he even sharpened the spikes of his cleats so he could hurt opposing basemen when he slid into them. His Detroit Tigers once played a 7-game series against a team composed of black and Cuban baseball players—and Ty especially hated blacks. Attempting to steal, he raised his spikes high as he slid, all the better to hurt second baseman John Henry Lloyd. However, Mr. Lloyd was prepared for Ty. Underneath his baseball stockings, Mr. Lloyd wore cast-iron shin guards, and he tagged Ty out. Ty tried twice more to steal, but he made an out each time. After the third time he made an out trying to steal, he swore that that was the last time he would play against black players.
• Two African-American athletes were recruited to play basketball at Indiana University—but they each received a letter with this message: “Our quota of Negroes has been filled.” Oh! Bad decision, and not just because of the bad morality. The two athletes were Bob Gibson, an excellent all-around athlete who is now a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame, and Oscar Robertson, who is now a member of the Basketball Hall of Fame.
• Ellen Cornish wasn’t allowed to run distance events in high-school track meets because she was a girl. In 1972, she was finally told that she could run in one track meet, but that any points she scored would not be counted. However, at the end of the seventh lap she was pulled off the track and not allowed to finish the race because the officials were afraid that she would win and embarrass the boy competitors.
Problem-Solving
• In 1923, an unconscious player won a football game. Texas Christian University defeated Terrell Prep 63-0, but for a while it looked as if it would have to forfeit the game because of a lack of players on the field. Texas Christian had only 20 players, and many of them had been injured and were sitting on the bench. Late in the game, only 10 healthy players remained, and a referee informed the Texas Christian coach that unless he could put 11 players on the field, his team would be forced to forfeit the game. One injured player, Ernest Lowry, volunteered to go in the game, but due to his injuries, he fainted when he stood up. Thinking quickly, the coach placed Mr. Lowry’s body on the football field, barely inbounds and far from the action, but still behind the line of scrimmage. The closing seconds ticked away, and Texas Christian won the game.
• At the 2000 Summer Olympic Games, the United States women’s softball team was favored to win the gold medal, but a drought of hits despite excellent pitching led to losses against Japan, China, and Australia. Suddenly, it was possible for the United States team to go home without a medal of any color. Therefore, the team members performed an “exorcism” of their bad luck. They showered in their uniforms with the water going full blast to wash the bad luck away. They flushed the toilets repeatedly to flush away the bad luck. And they passed around a softball. Whoever held the softball had to say something good and uplifting. The “exorcism” worked. The team won all of its remaining games, defeating all of the teams that had previously defeated them, and won the gold medal.
• At times, professional golfers need a few moments to be alone, and getting time to be alone can be difficult. To solve this problem, Peter Jacobsen will sometimes go into a bathroom stall and shut the door. Most media and other people will leave him alone at a time like that; however, in cases where someone is especially persistent in trying to talk to him, Mr. Jacobsen will sometimes make use of a toy that produces the sound of passing gas. He says, “Even sportswriters are bright enough to understand that if a guy’s eaten a bad burrito or some extra-strength chili, he needs to be left alone for a few minutes.”
***
© Copyright Bruce D. Bruce; All Rights Reserved
***
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Presenting
Michael Egan
U.S.A. wrote:
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION
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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
Grand Sumo returns this weekend.
Goes Viral
'Mark Hamill'
Twitter loves Mark Hamill so much, they'll even like him when he tweets, "Mark Hamill."
That's right, just the name, "Mark Hamill."
The "Star Wars" actor took part in a Twitter dare on Sunday to see if he could get the social media's universal sign of approval by writing just his name.
"You could just tweet 'Mark Hamill' and you'd get thousands of likes," wrote one Twitter user. Hamill retweeted the challenge missive, adding only his name as directed.
Within two minutes there were 2.1K likes and "Mark Hamill" shot to a trending Twutter topic. In two hours, the tweet had 7,016 retweets and 148.3K likes (and counting).
'Mark Hamill'
Goodbye Columbus
Mexico City
Christopher Columbus is getting kicked off Mexico City's most iconic boulevard.
Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum announced that the Columbus statue on the Paseo de la Reforma, often a focal point for Indigenous rights protests, would be replaced by a statue honoring Indigenous women.
She made the announcement on Sunday, which was International Day of the Indigenous Woman.
The Columbus statue, donated to the city many years ago, was a significant reference point on the 10-lane boulevard, and surrounding traffic circle is — so far — named for it.
It was removed last year supposedly for restoration, shortly before Oct. 12, which Americans know as Columbus Day but Mexicans call “Dia de la Raza,” or “Day of the Race" — the anniversary of Columbus' arrival in the Americas in 1492.
Mexico City
Newly Discovered Hat
Napoleon
A newly discovered hat with DNA evidence proving it belonged to the legendary European statesman and general Napoleon Bonaparte was previewed by auction house Bonhams in Hong Kong on Monday.
Described by Bonhams as the "first hat to bear the Emperor's DNA", it is on display in Hong Kong before it moves to Paris and then London, where it will be auctioned on Oct. 27.
The hat, one of the iconic bicornes often seen in depictions of Napoleon on the battlefield, had been bought by its present owner at a small German auction house that did not know at the time it had belonged to the emperor.
The buyer became intrigued when he realised it had inscriptions and other characteristics suggesting it could have belonged to Napoleon, Cottle said, adding that an initial investigation suggested it matched the dimensions and age of Napoleon's bicornes.
"Five hairs were discovered when the contents of the hat were examined very closely," Cottle said. "And two of those hairs were then followed up, and they carried the marker of Napoleon."
Napoleon
Car Attacked With Pickax
Takeshi Kitano
Tokyo police have arrested a man who allegedly attacked a car carrying Japanese entertainment icon Takeshi Kitano with a pickax, though nobody was injured, according to media reports.
The 74-year-old director and actor, also known by his stage name Beat Takeshi, was in the car with his driver and was just leaving the compound of TBS television network after his weekly live talk show Saturday night, TBS and other Japanese media reported Sunday.
The suspect allegedly smashed Kitano’s car several times with a pickax, demanding Takeshi get out of the car, TBS reported. A security guard called police and the suspect was arrested at the scene, reports said.
The suspect is a man in his 40s and was also carrying a knife with a 10-centimeter (4-inch) blade, according to media reports, including Kyodo News and TBS.
TBS said the suspect told police that he got angry after he was ignored in June when he kneeled down before Kitano's car seeking help to let him join the entertainment industry. Police are investigating the suspect’s motives, reports said.
Takeshi Kitano
True Colors
SCOTUS
Donald Trump (R-Lock Him Up)'s three Supreme Court nominees are exactly who we thought they were.
Last week's 5-4 decision by the court to let Texas' new anti-abortion law go into effect passed with the support of Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett. That's not really a surprise. Trump spent the 2016 presidential campaign promising conservatives he would appoint justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade. It's clear now that he kept his promise. The former president even took credit for the ruling in excerpts from a TV interview released on Sunday.
Still, it's worth remembering that during their confirmation hearings, each justice — and, often, their supporters — danced around the question of how they might rule on the issue, giving noncommittal answers that sometimes sounded almost as though they accepted Roe as settled law.
Take Gorsuch. At his 2017 confirmation hearing, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) asked if he accepted the precedent set by Roe. "That's the law of the land," Gorsuch said. "I accept the law of the land, senator, yes."
Kavanaugh gave a similarly vague response at his 2018 hearing. "As a general proposition, I understand the importance of the precedent set forth in Roe v. Wade," he told a Senate hearing.
SCOTUS
Resist COVID Vaccine Mandates
First Responders
The resurgence of COVID-19 this summer and the national debate over vaccine requirements have created a fraught situation for the nation’s first responders, who are dying in larger numbers but pushing back against mandates.
In the first half of 2021, 71 law enforcement officials in the U.S. died from the virus — a small decrease compared to the 76 who died in the same time period in 2020, per data compiled by the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund. Last year, the total figure was 241 — making the virus the the leading cause of law enforcement line-of-duty deaths.
Despite the deaths, police officers and other first responders are among those most hesitant to get the vaccine and their cases continue to grow. No national statistics show the vaccination rate for America’s entire population of first responders but individual police and fire departments across the country report figures far below the national rate of 74% of adults who have had at least one dose.
Frustrated city leaders are enacting mandates for their municipal employees — including police officers and firefighters — as the delta variant surges. The mandates’ consequences range from weekly testing to suspension to termination. It’s a stark contrast from the beginning of the vaccine rollout when first responders were prioritized for shots.
In Los Angeles, over 3,000 employees in the police department have been infected by the virus and the numbers continue to climb. Ten LAPD workers have died, as well as three spouses.
First Responders
Learn to Swear
Australian Ducks
You wouldn't miss one of Australia's musk ducks if you saw it. The name comes from the musky smell the ducks waft around during the breeding season, and the males have a large, black lobe below their bill.
But if the musk duck you're hanging out with is called Ripper, the other dead giveaway is... swearing. With human words. For animal researchers this is an exciting find, and new research has looked into how a few of these particular species of duck ended up with that trait.
"Acquiring vocalizations by learning them from other individuals is only known from a limited number of animal groups," ethologists Carel ten Cate (Leiden University) and Peter Fullagar write in their new paper.
"Here, we provide evidence for vocal learning in a member of a basal clade of the avian phylogeny: the Australian musk duck (Biziura lobata)."
One duck – Ripper – was hand reared at the Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve South West of Australia's capital Canberra back in the 80s, and he learnt how to remarkably imitate the sound of a slamming door as well as a phrase that sounds a lot like 'you bloody fool'.
Australian Ducks
Rare In Nature
Blue
When you look up at the blue sky overhead or gaze across the seemingly endless expanse of a blue ocean, you might think that the color blue is common in nature.
But among all the hues found in rocks, plants and flowers, or in the fur, feathers, scales and skin of animals, blue is surprisingly scarce.
But why is the color blue so rare? The answer stems from the chemistry and physics of how colors are produced — and how we see them.
We're able to see color because each of our eyes contains between 6 million and 7 million light-sensitive cells called cones. There are three different types of cones in the eye of a person with normal color vision, and each cone type is most sensitive to a particular wavelength of light: red, green or blue. Information from millions of cones reaches our brains as electrical signals that communicate all the types of light reflected by what we see, which is then interpreted as different shades of color.
When we look at a colorful object, such as a sparkling sapphire or a vibrant hydrangea bloom, "the object is absorbing some of the white light that falls onto it; because it's absorbing some of the light, the rest of the light that's reflected has a color," science writer Kai Kupferschmidt, author of "Blue: In Search of Nature's Rarest Color" (The Experiment, 2021), told Live Science.
Blue
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