• When young people’s author Robert Cormier wrote I Am the Cheese, he included a telephone number. He realized that some readers of the novel would call that number, and because he didn’t want anyone else to be bothered, he decided to use his own telephone number in his novel. In 1987, ten years after the novel had been published, Mr. Cormier said that many, many young people have called his number — at least one per day. He became long-time friends with many of the callers, and he said that absolutely none of the calls were abusive. In ten years, he had never received an obscene call, a wise-guy call, or a middle-of-the-night call. This he correctly pointed out is a tribute to his young readers.
• What fans say to start conversations with famous authors can be interesting. At a book fair, a fan approached British crime novelist Val McDermid and told her, “Do you know that from behind you look just like Jacques Derrida?” Of course, crime novelists have other kinds of interesting experiences. While doing research for one of her crime books, Ms. McDermid visited a museum with exhibits of medieval implements of torture. She says, “The thing that freaked me out was not the damage they could do but the fact that they were beautifully made. That is what made the hairs stand up on the back of my head — that people had taken the time to make these things beautiful.”
• J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books have been extremely popular with children. In fact, when Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was first released for sale in Great Britain on July 8, 1999, the publisher, Bloomsbury Publishing, ordered that the book not be sold until 3:45 p.m. — after school had been let out. Otherwise, Bloomsbury Publishing was afraid that children would skip school in order to buy the book.
Fathers
• At age 12, young people’s author Peg Kehret got polio, and when she started to recover from the paralysis, part of her therapy involved learning to play the accordion because playing it exercises arm muscles that she needed to exercise. Peg’s father was enthusiastic about her learning to play the accordion, although she wasn’t. Because her father told her that she would learn quickly to play the accordion, she told him, “Why don’t you play it, if you think it’s so easy?” Her father replied, “All right. I will.” He borrowed the accordion, but unfortunately he could only make a few squeaks and squawks with it, along with just a few notes that sounded like “The Beer Barrel Polka.” Peg and her roommates, all of whom also had polio, booed and covered their ears. However, her father promised to try to play the accordion the following week, when he would visit her again. This time, although Peg and her roommates were prepared to boo and cover their ears, her father flawlessly played “The Beer Barrel Polka.” Of course, he had rented an accordion from a music store and played it until midnight each night to learn to play flawlessly that one song for his daughter.
• While author Robert Parsons was on holiday in St. Lucia, an island in the Caribbean, he and his family ate dinner at a buffet restaurant. Unfortunately, three English teenagers were seated nearby, and they were using the f-word. Because Mr. Parsons’ daughter was young enough to be reading books such as My Little Pony, he went over to the teenagers and told them to stop using foul language. They stopped. Unfortunately, Mr. Parsons’ wife told him later that the teenagers’ language had been foul, but his language when telling them to shut up had been fouler. Of course, telling three teenagers who could easily beat him up to shut up may be dangerous, but Mr. Parsons says that he has done something even more dangerous: taking drugs with the Clash and the Sex Pistols. By the way, Mr. Parsons is learning Japanese, a language that his wife and his daughter know well. As of early 2008, he had learned enough Japanese that his young daughter no longer laughed at him, and he says that he is able to read Tokyo street signs — “as long as they say ‘sushi.’”
When Marlene Dietrich left Germany for Hollywood in 1929, she took a prized musical instrument with her that she later played on film sets, at parties, and in USO shows. What was Marlene Dietrich's instrument?
Cauliflower is one of several vegetables in the species Brassica oleracea in the genus Brassica, which is in the Brassicaceae (or Mustard) family. It is an annual plant that reproduces by seed. Typically, only the head is eaten – the edible white flesh sometimes called "curd" (with a similar appearance to cheese curd). The cauliflower head is composed of a white inflorescence meristem. Cauliflower heads resemble those in broccoli, which differs in having flower buds as the edible portion. Brassica oleracea also includes broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, collard greens, and kale, collectively called "cole" crops, though they are of different cultivar groups.
In 2016, global production of cauliflowers (combined for production reports with broccoli) was 25.2 million tonnes, led by China and India which, combined, had 73% of the world total. Secondary producers, having 0.4–1.3 million tonnes annually, were the United States, Spain, Mexico and Italy.
Cauliflower is a popular low-calorie, gluten-free alternative to rice and flour. Between 2012 and 2016, cauliflower production in the United States increased 63%, and cauliflower-based product sales increased 71% between 2017 and 2018. Cauliflower rice is made by pulsing cauliflower florets followed by cooking the result in oil. Cauliflower pizza crust is made from cauliflower flour and is popular in pizza restaurants.
Cauliflower has been noticed by mathematicians for its distinct fractal dimension, calculated to be roughly 2.8. One of the fractal properties of cauliflower is that every branch, or "module", is similar to the entire cauliflower. Another quality, also present in other plant species, is that the angle between "modules," as they become more distant from the center, is 360 degrees divided by the golden ratio.
Source
and
Source
Mark. was first, and correct, with:
China.
Cal in Vermont wrote:
China leads the the world in the production of cauliflower, best expressed in quantities of lots. As in lots and lots. I bet the US of A leads the world in the production and consumption of lots and lots of ranch dressing.
Billy in Cypress said:
billy in cyprus
Alan J answered:
China.
Dave responded:
China. Closely followed by India, the United States is only a minor producer.
Deborah, the Master Gardener replied:
As best I can tell, China produces the most cauliflower. I’ve grown it but it’s very persnickety, so I rarely give it space in the garden now. A couple winters ago we grew Romanesco cauliflower, with the green fractal spirals, a beautiful edible work of art. It’s easier and cheaper to just buy it.
Jim from CA, retired to ID, responded:
China
Daniel in The City said:
China
Leo in Boise wrote:
China leads in the production of cauliflower. Interesting, since I don’t recall seeing cauliflower in Chinese cuisine.
DJ Useo answered:
From the Island of Cauli. They don't like it if you eat cauliflower.
Joe ( -- Vote Blue, No Matter Who -- ) replied:
Ha! China, just as I suspected. I'm not gonna say any more about that cuz I love cauliflower.
Mac Mac took the day off.
Kevin in Washington DC, took the day off.
David of Moon Valley took the day off.
mj took the day off.
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Roy the (now retired) hoghead (aka 'hoghed') ( Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid. ~Frank Zappa ) took the day off.
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BttbBob has returned to semi-retired status.
~~~~~
Sure don't miss the barrage of political ads every time I turn on the TV.
Tonight, Tuesday:
CBS begins the night with a FRESH'NCIS', followed by a FRESH'FBI', then a FRESH'FBI: Most Wanted'.
Scheduled on a FRESHStephen Colbert are Lewis Hamilton and Andrea Bocelli.
Scheduled on a FRESHJames Corden, OBE, are Melissa McCarthy, Bobby Cannavale, and FITZ.
NBC starts the night with a FRESH'The Voice', followed by a FRESH'This Is Us', then a FRESH'Transplant'.
Scheduled on a FRESHJimmy Fallon are Whoopi Goldberg, Emma Corrin, and Dierks Bentley.
Scheduled on a FRESHSeth Meyers are Hugh Laurie, Rachel Bloom, LP, and Valerie Franco.
On a RERUNLilly Singh (from 4/9/20) are Adam Pally and Abby Elliott.
ABC opens the night with a FRESH'The Bachelorette', followed by a FRESH'Big Sky'.
Scheduled on a FRESHJimmy Kimmel are "People"'s Sexiest Man Alive, Alison Brie, and G-Eazy featuring Blackbear.
The CW offers a RERUN'Swamp Thing', followed by a RERUN'Tell Me A Story'.
Faux has a FRESH'Cosmos: Possible Worlds', followed by a FRESH'NeXt'.
MY recycles an old 'Chicago PD', followed by another old 'Chicago PD'.
AMC offers the movie 'Jack Frost', followed by the movie 'Four Christmases', then the movie 'Fred Claus'.
BBC -
[6:00AM] STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE - THE PASSENGER
[7:00AM] STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE - MOVE ALONG HOME
[8:00AM] STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE - THE NAGUS
[9:00AM] STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE - VORTEX
[10:00AM] STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE - BATTLE LINES
[11:00AM] STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE - THE STORYTELLER
[12:00PM] STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION - TIN MAN
[1:00PM] STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION - HOLLOW PURSUITS
[2:00PM] STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION - THE MOST TOYS
[3:00PM] STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION - SAREK
[4:00PM] STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION - MÉNAGE À TROI
[5:00PM] STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION - TRANSFIGURATIONS
[6:00PM] STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION - THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS
[7:00PM] STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION - THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS, PART II
[8:00PM] TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY
[11:00PM] CONTACT
[2:30AM] CONTACT (ALL TIMES ET)
Bravo has 3 hours of old 'Chrisley Knows Best', followed by a FRESH'Don't Be Tardy ...', then a FRESH'Watch What Happens Live'.
Comedy Central has an hour of old 'The Office', 2 hours of old 'Tosh.0', followed by a FRESH'Tosh.0', and another 'Tosh.0'.
Scheduled on a FRESHThe Daily Show it's TBA.
FX has the movie 'Transformers: The Last Knight', followed by the movie 'Skyscraper'.
History has the FRESH'The Curse Of Oak Island: Digging Deeper', followed by a FRESH'The Curse Of Oak Island', then a FRESH'Beyond Oak Island'.
IFC -
[6:00am] Parks And Recreation
[6:30am] The Running Man
[8:45am] Escape From L.A.
[11:00am] Braveheart
[3:00pm] Captain Phillips
[6:00pm] The Green Mile
[10:00pm] The Green Mile
[2:00am] Captain Phillips
[5:00am] Road To Perdition (ALL TIMES ET)
Sundance -
[6:00am - 9:30am] gomer pyle, u.s.m.c.
[10:00am - 11:30am] hogan's heroes
[12:00pm] escape from alcatraz
[2:30pm] the silence of the lambs
[5:00pm] the dark knight rises
[9:00pm] transporter 2
[11:00pm] the dark knight rises
[3:00am] columbo
[4:45am - 5:55am] the andy griffith show (ALL TIMES ET)
SyFy has the movie 'The Fifth Element', followed by the movie 'Hunter Killer', then hours & hours of old 'Futurama'.
TBS:
Scheduled on a FRESHConan is Tracee Ellis Ross.
ABC has given a straight-to-series order to a multi-camera comedy starring and executive produced by Alec Baldwin and Kelsey Grammer in a pairing of Emmy winners who has each led an acclaimed, long-running broadcast comedy series. The project, slated for the 2021-22 season, hails from Modern Family co-creator/executive producer Chris Lloyd, executive producer Vali Chandrasekaran and studio 20th Television, where Lloyd and Chandrasekaran are under deals.
Written by Lloyd and Chandrasekaran, the Untitled Alex Baldwin/Kelsey Grammer Project follows three men — two of them played by Grammer and Baldwin — who were roommates in their 20s until their warring egos drove them apart. They reunite decades later for one more run at the lives they’ve always wanted.
Baldwin, Grammer, Lloyd and Chandrasekaran executive produce with Jason Schrift, Matt DelPiano, Tom Russo, Adam Griffin and Jeff Morton. 20th Television, part of Disney TV Studios, is the studio.
Lloyd co-created, executive produced and co-showran ABC’s multiple-Emmy-winning comedy series Modern Family, which wrapped its 11th and final season in the spring. The project reunites Lloyd with Grammer, with whom he worked on all 11 seasons of Frasier as co-executive producer/executive producer, and on the Fox comedy series Back to You, which Lloyd co-created/exec produced and starred Grammer.
Taylor Swift has responded to news of the sale of her catalog by Scooter Braun to a private equity company, saying she spurned the firm’s hopes of working together when she learned Braun would still profit from her work, and announcing she had already undertaken the long-promised re-recording of her entire Big Machine catalog.
Swift also said that Braun’s reps had let her know the catalog was for sale, but was asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement to never again disparage Braun before she would be allowed to even examine Big Machine’s financial books or make an offer.
The singer wrote in a statement published on Twitter that “my team attempted to enter into negotiations with Scooter Braun. Scooter’s team wanted me to sign an ironclad NDA stating I would never say another word about Scooter Braun unless it was positive, before we could even look at the financial records of BMLG (which is always the first step in a purchase of this nature). So, I would have to sign a document that would silence me forever before I could even have a chance to bid on my own work.”
She said negotiations never got underway, because of the strict NDA demands. “He would never even quote my team a price. These master recordings were not for sale to me,” she concluded.
Swift said she was alerted about the sale by the purchasing company only after the deal had already gone down.
The Trump campaign dropped a defamation lawsuit against a small Wisconsin TV station that aired an advertisement opposing Donald Trump's re-election bid that featured verbatim quotes from the president.
The ad from Democratic super PAC Priorities USA Action quoted outgoing President Trump (R-Lock Him Up) saying "We have it totally under control," and "One day it’s like a miracle, it will disappear" as a graph showed the rising number of coronavirus cases.
The Trump campaign sued WJFW-NBC of Rhinelander, Wisconsin asserting the ad "deceptively" manipulated quotes from different speeches by splicing them together.
Late Friday, the campaign dismissed the suit with prejudice, according to a filing in U.S. District Court.
Lawyers for the small station said in a court filing that after Trump lost Wisconsin in the election his campaign lacked standing.
Disinformation about election fraud is thriving on YouTube, and right-wing outlets that most aggressively push false information are gaining new, conservative viewers on the video service, according to new research.
YouTube, which is owned by Google, has not taken down videos challenging the outcome of the election, including content that spreads false allegations. Instead, the company has said that it is fighting disinformation by elevating authoritative news sources in search results and recommendations, while slowing the spread of borderline content — videos that bump up against its policies but do not violate them.
But data from an independent research project called Transparency Tube found that fringe, right-wing news channels aggressively pushing unfounded claims of widespread voter fraud are gaining a larger share of views among conservative YouTube channels than before the election.
At the same time, Fox News, which has been more reserved in promoting unsubstantiated claims of a stolen election, has seen its share among a conservative audience decline on YouTube even though it is one of YouTube’s promoted, authoritative sources.
In September and October, Fox News’ YouTube channel had about a 17% share of all views on what Transparency Tube calls “Partisan Right,” a grouping of more than 2,000 channels with more than 10,000 subscribers focused on politics with a highly critical view of Democrats. In the week of Nov. 5 to 12, that percentage fell to 13%.
Hate crimes in the U.S. rose to the highest level in more than a decade as federal officials also recorded the highest number of hate-motivated killings since the FBI began collecting that data in the early 1990s, according to an FBI report released Monday.
There were 51 hate crime murders in 2019, which includes 22 people who were killed in a shooting that targeted Mexicans at a Walmart in the border city of El Paso, Texas, the report said. The suspect in that August 2019 shooting, which left two dozen other people injured, was charged with both state and federal crimes in what authorities said was an attempt to scare Hispanics into leaving the United States.
There were 7,314 hate crimes last year, up from 7,120 the year before — and approaching the 7,783 of 2008. The FBI’s annual report defines hate crimes as those motivated by bias based on a person’s race, religion or sexual orientation, among other categories.
The data also shows there was a nearly 7% increase in religion-based hate crimes, with 953 reports of crimes targeting Jews and Jewish institutions last year, up from 835 the year before. The FBI said the number of hate crimes against African Americans dropped slightly to 1,930, from 1,943.
Anti-Hispanic hate crimes, however, rose to 527 in 2019, from 485 in 2018. And the total number of hate crimes based on a person’s sexual orientation stayed relatively stable, with one fewer crime reported last year, compared with the year before, though there were 20 more hate crimes against gay men reported.
Donald Trump (R-Grifter)’s chief coronavirus adviser has been condemned for encouraging people to “rise up” against measures designed to slow the spread of Covid-19.
Dr Scott Atlas (R-Unqualified), a cardiologist with little expertise in public health or infectious diseases, made the comment on Twitter shortly after Michigan announced new restrictions on Sunday evening.
“The only way this stops is if people rise up,” Dr Atlas said. “You get what you accept. #FreedomMatters #StepUp”
The comment, which contradicts the consensus among public health experts, echoed the US president’s calls in April for followers to “liberate Michigan!”, after the state’s governor, Gretchen Whitmer, implemented a lockdown amid the first surge in coronavirus cases there.
Fordham University law professor John Pfaff tweeted: “Is a White House official advocating [people] rise up against a governor, and against one who was almost kidnapped by armed militiamen for exactly this reason?”
A travelling nurse based in Texas has described the “horrific” conditions she’s experienced while working in hospitals overrun with Covid-19 patients.
In a 50-minute emotional Facebook Live, nurse Lawanna Rivers criticised University Medical Center in El Paso, Texas, and some of the hospital’s doctors for how they were treating those diagnosed with the novel virus.
"We as nurses, it's OK for us to be exposed but you as doctors, you do not even come in there," Ms Rivers said. "You can't get exposed but we can, and y'all are the ones making all the money."
The hospital also has a place nicknamed “The Pit” where the most critical Covid-19 patients go. Ms Rivers said other staff members told her that if a patient goes to “The Pit”, they only come out in a “body bag”.
"This hospital's policy was they only get three rounds of CPR which was only six minutes, this out of all the codes we had, there is not a single patient that made it," Ms Rivers said. “I saw a lot of people die that I felt like shouldn’t have died,” she added.
The first object within the Milky Way galaxy caught emitting fast radio bursts is now officially a repeater.
In a new peer-reviewed paper, SGR 1935+2154 has been described spitting out two more powerful radio signals consistent with those seen from extragalactic sources.
The new signals, however, are not all the same strength. This suggests that there could be more than one process inside magnetars that are capable of producing these enigmatic bursts - and that SGR 1935+2154 could be a dream come true, an excellent laboratory for understanding them.
Fast radio bursts have been a puzzle since their discovery in 2007. They're extremely powerful bursts of energy only in radio frequencies, lasting just milliseconds long at most. And there were several major difficulties in figuring out what they were.
Until April of this year, fast radio bursts (FRBs) had only been detected coming from outside the Milky Way, millions of light-years away - way too far to do more than, at most, track them down to a general region in another galaxy. For most of them, though, we haven't even been able to do that.
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said:
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
