M Is FOR MASHUP - May 19th, 2021
80s Mashed 6 Rules!
By DJ Useo
The members of
Audioboots mashup forum
( audioboots.org/ ) regularly release themed group mashup albums. All have been wonderful, with a splendid response that merits further collections.
Normally, the Moderators select the style of track, but with this new release, members were given a vote. They quickly decided on making a new
6th volume in the 80s Mashed series
( audioboots.org/Albums/80sMashed6/ ) .
Now that the album is finished & enjoying public exposure, it’s so very clear the vote went along the correct path. All contributors went deep into the style with excellent results.
The 6th volume of 80s Mashed features 50 superb tracks from 23 gifted home producers. You’ll hear paired source artists like The Cars vs Disturbed, The Go-Go’s vs The Cult, Billy Joel vs Coldplay, & so very many more.
There’s two magnificent video tracks that we had trouble hosting, so feel free to obtain them from links we posted.
01 - Xam - “Close to Faith Right Now” ( The Cure vs Akon, George Michael and the Bangles )
( www.mediafire.com/file/5kkjmhyoawpmg9l/Xam_-_The_Cure%252C_Akon%252C_George_Michael_and_the_Bangles_-_Close_to_Faith_Right_Now_%2528Mashup%2529.mp4/file )
02 - Hahnstudios - “Psycho Radio Star” ( Ava Max vs The Buggles vs Shakespears Sister vs Queen )
( www.mediafire.com/file/dj25ij080303lgu/Hahnstudios_-_Psycho_Radio_Star_video.wmv/file )
We wish huge praise unto all the skilled contributors. None of this would exist without the amazing home producers that gift us such stunning tunes. All praise as well to the finestkind source artists who retain all copyrights.
All the previous 5 volumes of 80s Mashed are still available from the bottom of any Audioboots page. Taken altogether, the
Audioboots 80s Mashed
( audioboots.org/Albums/80sMashed6/ ) experience is deep & totally fulfilling. Try any track, & I’m sure you’ll agree.
Have the day of good - DJ Konrad Useo
from Bruce
Anecdotes
Courage
• In Poland, Irene Gut Opdyke witnessed Nazis shooting unarmed Jews, and she prayed to God to ask Him “to give me responsibility, to bring me the opportunity to help, even if my own life should be taken.” She helped many Jews, and she even hid several Jews at the villa of the elderly German major for whom she worked. (The architect of the villa had realized that war was coming, so he had built a hiding place under the gazebo. Much of the time the Jews were hidden there.) Unfortunately, the elderly German major discovered that she was hiding Jews. However, he said that he would protect her secret if she would become his mistress. She did. After the war, Ms. Opdyke said, “It was a small price to pay for the many lives.”
• At the trial by the Inquisition of Joan of Arc by biased judges who knew ahead of time that they would find her guilty no matter what defense she made, her judges asked her trick question after trick question. One example was this question: “Are you in God’s grace?” If she answered that she was, her answer would be evidence that she was guilty of the sin of pride. If she answered that she was not, her answer would be evidence that God had rejected her. However, she was very intelligent — as well as justifiably defiant — and she answered, “If I am not, may God bring me to it; if I am, may God keep me in it.”
• St. Athanasius tried to escape from some assassins by rowing a boat on a river. As he was rowing in one direction, the assassins approached him in a boat going in the other direction. When the assassins saw him, they cried out, “Where is the traitor Athanasius?” He avoided lying by answering, “Not far away,” continued to row, and escaped the assassins.
Death
• According to Deuteronomy 6:5, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.” When Rabbi Akiba was about to be unjustly executed, it was the time of the Jewish prayer known as the Shema. (Shema is the first word of the Hebrew sentence which means “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is One.”) His disciples asked him why he was reciting the Shema at this time. He replied that he had interpreted the verse “with all thy soul” to mean “even if He takes away your life” and he had always worried about when he could obey that commandment. Now that he had the opportunity of obeying the commandment, he would do so.
• Entertainers were not always regarded with respect; long ago, they were regarded as wicked people who needed to repent. Jean-Baptiste Lully became very ill, and thinking he might die, he sent for a confessor. The priest told him, “In view of your stage-life, I want you to do penance by sacrificing something very dear to you.” The priest then suggested that Lully allow him to throw into the fire the manuscript of a new opera that Lully had composed. Lully agreed, and the manuscript was burned. Instead of dying, Lully recovered. A friend remarked to him that it was a pity that the opera had been burned, but Lully told him, “Oh, that’s all right. I have a copy of it.”
• A general swept through a region during wartime, creating havoc and terror wherever he went. He entered a temple and was surprised that the Zen master was not terrified of him. The general asked the Zen master, “Don’t you know that I can run this sword through your body without batting an eye?” The Zen master replied, “Don’t you know that I can have a sword run through my body without batting an eye?” The general bowed to the Zen master, and then left him in peace.
• Martin Luther King’s mother, like himself, died because of violence. On June 30, 1974, while playing the organ in church, she was shot and killed, as was a church deacon. The murderer was Marcus Wayne Chenault, a mentally disturbed African American who said that he had killed them because they were Christians. He was tried, found guilty, and sentenced to die. However, the King family opposed the death penalty, and the sentence was later reduced to life in prison.
***
© Copyright Bruce D. Bruce; All Rights Reserved
***
250 Anecdotes About Religion — Buy
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250 Anecdotes About Religion -- Smashwords: Many Formats, Including PDF
Presenting
Michael Egan
U.S.A. wrote:
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION
BANDCAMP MUSIC
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION OF BANDCAMP MUSIC
Music: "One of My Lovers"
Album: TETHERS
Artist: Lynsey Moon
Artist Location: Massachusetts
Info: “Lynsey is a singer, ukuleleist, and songwriter, pulling influence from various genres. She currently posts covers and original content on YouTube, while also occasionally uploading to Bandcamp or SoundCloud. She currently performs in and around the Worcester area, solo or with her band the Wormtown Mugwumps.”
“This album was created through the collaborative efforts of nearly 40 people and funded by almost 70. Within these tracks, you will find an abundance of individual styles, and a variety of musical genres and influences. Each person added something different, and I could not be happier with the end result. I hope you love it as much as I do.”
Price: $1 (USD) for track; $12 (USD) for 13-track album
Genre: Pop.
Links:
TETHERS
Lynsey Moon on Bandcamp
Lynsey Moon 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
Stephen Suggests
Right Wing Crackpots
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
Much thinner marine layer - burned off by noon and the defective rooster celebrated all afternoon.
University of Southern California
Annenberg Inclusion Initiative
Aside from action star Dwayne Johnson's hit movies, Hollywood's most popular films have rarely featured Asians or Pacific Islanders in leading roles on the big screen, according to an academic study released on Tuesday.
The findings showed "an epidemic of invisibility" for Asians and Pacific Islanders (API) in movies released from 2007 to 2019, said the study from researchers at the University of Southern California's Annenberg Inclusion Initiative.
About 7.1% of the U.S. population identifies as Asian or Pacific Islander. In the 1,300 top-grossing films during the study period, 3.4% of leads or co-leads were played by API actors, the researchers found.
Of 44 films with API actors in leading roles, 14 of them starred Johnson, the former wrestler known for the "Fast & Furious" and "Jumanji" films. Johnson's mother is from the Pacific island of American Samoa.
Annenberg Inclusion Initiative
Goop Sued
Gwyneth Paltrow
Actress Gwyneth Paltrow’s company Goop has been sued because one of their so-called “vagina” candles allegedly exploded.
The class-action lawsuit was launched by a man who says he bought the $75 “This smells like my vagina” scented candle, claiming it could have ended his life when it exploded.
The Texas man says the candle “exploded” in his bedroom. The class-action complaint was filed in the US District Court for the Central District of California and demands payment for those who have “through no fault of their own, purchased defective and dangerous vagina-scented candles”.
The plaintiff, Colby Watson, says he bought the candle on 14 January 2021 via the Goop website. He claims in the complaint that he lit the candle on 6 February on his bedroom nightstand. He added that it had become “engulfed in high flames” about three hours later. He said the room was filled with smoke and that the nightstand was left with a black ring on it.
While the jar the candle was in was charred, it didn’t break despite reportedly exploding.
Gwyneth Paltrow
Prime-Time Nielsens
Ratings
The CBS comedy “Mom” signed off after eight seasons last week before 6.2 million viewers, the biggest audience of its final season.
With another television season winding down, CBS was the most-watched network in prime time last week, averaging 5 million viewers. NBC had 3.7 million, ABC had 2.9 million, Fox had 2.3 million, Univision had 1.29 million, Telemundo had 1.27 million and Ion Television had 930,000.
Fox News Channel led the cable networks, averaging 2.29 million viewers in prime time. MSNBC had 1.44 million, HGTV had 1.19 million, CNN had 915,000 and TNT had 905,000.
For the week, the 20 most-watched shows in prime time, their networks and viewerships:
1. “NCIS,” CBS, 8.94 million.
2. “60 Minutes,” CBS, 7.99 million.
3. “FBI,” CBS, 7.69 million
4. “The Equalizer,” CBS, 7.39 million.
5. “Young Sheldon,” CBS, 7.21 million.
6. “Chicago Fire,” NBC, 7.08 million.
7. “Blue Bloods” (Friday, 10 p.m.), CBS, 7.07 million.
8. “Chicago Med,” NBC, 7.06 million.
9. “Blue Bloods” (Friday, 8 p.m.), CBS, 6.36 million.
10. “Mom,” CBS, 6.17 million.
11. “American Idol,” ABC, 6.11 million.
12. “The Voice” (Monday), NBC, 6.03 million.
13. “Chicago PD,” NBC, 5.94 million.
14. “NCIS: Los Angeles,” CBS, 5.85 million.
15. “911,” Fox, 5.83 million.
16. “FBI: Most Wanted,” CBS, 5.79 million.
17. “The Voice” (Tuesday), NBC, 5.75 million.
18. “United States of Al,” CBS, 5.23 million.
19. “The Neighborhood,” CBS, 5.11 million.
20. “This is Us,” NBC, 5.08 million.
Ratings
Reopens
Grevin Wax Museum
Closed since late October for the COVID-19 pandemic, the Paris wax museum will reopen on Wednesday with a new guest: U.S. President Joe Biden, posing with his arms crossed and flashing a toothy grin.
A little further down the museum's halls, President Barack Obama's statue still stands, smiling serenely, but that of Donald Trump (R-Lock Him Up) has been dismantled and put into storage.
The Grevin Wax Museum, opened in 1882, has featured U.S. presidents since James Garfield, but when their term ends, their statue is taken down and the heads and bodies are kept in separate crates in the museum's cellars.
"We have kept Obama, as winner of the Nobel Peace Prize; the others are in storage," Grevin museum spokeswoman Veronique Berecz said.
The museum still has the heads of U.S. presidents including George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George Bush senior, Ronald Regan, Jimmy Carter, Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy, but those of most older presidents have been discarded.
Grevin Wax Museum
Tried to Use Grand Jury
DOJ
The Justice Department under President Donald Trump (R-Lock Him Up) secretly obtained a grand-jury subpoena last year in an attempt to identify the person behind a Twitter account dedicated to mocking Rep. Devin Nunes (R-COWabunga) of California, according to a newly unsealed court document.
But Twitter fought the subpoena, as well as an associated gag order barring the company from talking about it publicly. Twitter executives raised skepticism about whether the Justice Department might be abusing federal criminal law-enforcement power to retaliate against a critic of Nunes, a Republican who is a close ally of Trump, in violation of the First Amendment.
Ultimately, according to a person familiar with the matter, the Justice Department withdrew the subpoena this spring, after President Joe Biden took office.
What was going on behind the subpoena remains murky. The filing — a motion to suppress the subpoena and lift the gag order that Twitter filed in March — shows that the Justice Department sent the company a demand on Nov. 24 to provide identifying information about the user @NunesAlt.
Twitter appears to have immediately been suspicious about the legitimacy of the request. The user of that account, the filing said, “appears to be engaged in clear First Amendment activity, discussing stances on current events, government policies and one elected official in particular — Congressman Nunes.”
DOJ
Disinformation Network
'Linchpin'
Guo Wengui, a Chinese businessman living in self-exile in New York, is at the center of a vast online network of media websites and social media accounts that spread false claims about coronavirus vaccines, election fraud, and the baseless QAnon conspiracy theory, researchers from the Graphika network analysis company write in a new report released Monday.
Guo is close to Stephen Bannon (R-Satan's Acolyte), the onetime chief strategist to former President Donald Trump (R-Lock Him Up); last summer, Bannon was arrested on Guo's yacht on federal fraud charges. In its report, Graphika said Guo is the "linchpin" of the disinformation network, and the "leading personality" who "appears to define goals and messaging and is positioned as a wise leader who should be admired and followed."
The network includes the media websites GTV and GNews, and Guo is often featured in their videos; in April, he appeared in a GNews video calling COVID-19 vaccines "fake" and "poison," The Washington Post reports. Graphika says the network's thousands of social media accounts work in tandem to spread disinformation, and they "appear to be run by real people but solely amplify Guo-related content." These Guo supporters call themselves "ants" and are organized into local action groups called "Himalaya farms," Graphika said.
The Graphika report is "an important forensic analysis of the ways that rich and politically motivated people can manipulate social media," Joan Donovan, director of the Technology and Social Change Research Project at Harvard's Shorenstein Center, told the Post. In an email to the Post, a spokesman for Guo said he does not control the content on GTV or GNews and "implying that Mr. Guo is responsible for everything that is posted on [GTV] is ludicrous." Read more at The Washington Post.
'Linchpin'
Galapagos Island Rock Formation Collapses
Darwin's Arch
Darwin's Arch, a famed natural rock formation in the Galapagos Islands that is popular with divers, photographers and cruise-ship tourists, has collapsed from erosion, Ecuadorean environmental officials said on Tuesday.
Photographs posted on social media by Ecuador's Environment Ministry showed rubble from the curvature of the arch visible in the ocean, with the two supporting columns still standing.
"We report that the iconic Arc of Darwin collapsed," the ministry wrote in Spanish on its Facebook page.
The arch, named for British naturalist Charles Darwin, stands at the northernmost tip of the Galapagos Islands, a volcanic archipelago in the Pacific Ocean 600 miles (965 km) west of Ecuador.
Tourists are not allowed to set foot on the arch or island.
Darwin's Arch
'Impossible' Quasicrystal
Trinitite
At 5:29 am on the morning of 16 July 1945, in the state of New Mexico, a dreadful slice of history was made.
The dawn calm was torn asunder as the United States Army detonated a plutonium implosion device known as the Gadget - the world's very first test of a nuclear bomb, known as the Trinity test. This moment would change warfare forever.
The energy release, equivalent to 21 kilotons of TNT, vaporized the 30-metre test tower (98 ft) and miles of copper wires connecting it to recording equipment. The resulting fireball fused the tower and copper with the asphalt and desert sand below into green glass - a new mineral called trinitite.
Decades later, scientists have discovered a secret hidden in a piece of that trinitite - a rare form of matter known as a quasicrystal, once thought to be impossible.
Most crystals, from the humble table salt to the toughest diamonds, obey the same rule: their atoms are arranged in a lattice structure that repeats in three-dimensional space. Quasicrystals break this rule - the pattern in which their atoms are arranged does not repeat.
Trinitite
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