Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Helaine Olen: Can voters forgive Elizabeth Warren? (Washington Post)
There's almost a year before the first voter casts so much as a ballot in the Iowa caucuses. A lot will happen before then. That gives Warren, the Democratic Party and voters time to leave 2016 behind - once and for all. And that, no matter who ends up being the nominee, will be a very good thing for both the Democratic Party and the American people.
Alexandra Petri: Beto O'Rourke tells you how to do the hokey pokey (Washington Post)
"I don't ever prepare a speech," he says. "I don't write out what I'm going to say. I remember driving to that, I was, like, 'What do I say? Maybe I'll just introduce myself. I'll take questions.' I got in there, and I don't know if it's a speech or not, but it felt amazing. Because every word was pulled out of me. Like, by some greater force, which was just the people there. Everything that I said, I was, like, watching myself, being like, How am I saying this stuff? Where is this coming from?" - Beto O'Rourke, in Vanity Fair
Dan Simon: Rediscovering Nelson Algren (The Nation)
Colin Asher's Never a Lovely So Real: The Life and Work of Nelson Algren"delves into Algren's lifelong struggle to stay true to his credo, his soulful cry that the purpose of any writer is to stand up to power, to take the judge down from the bench, to give voice to the voiceless. And it delivers a wrenching portrait of a man who struggled to maintain his sanity and his spirit in a society that was well prepared to see its writers give up or sell out, but struggled to comprehend writers who persevered and paid the price as Algren did."
Terry Teachout: The Code of the Western (Commentary)
The oldest genre is still alive and kicking.
Dana Stevens: Us Is More Mysterious Than Get Out-and More Terrifying for It (Slate)
In Jordan Peele's first movie, he took aim at white liberals. In his follow-up, no American is safe.
Ben Mathis-Lilley: The Frog Has Been Fully Boiled (Slate)
In any case, the frog (frog = what remained of our national dignity) is fully boiled. It is an ex-frog. The only question that remains is whether Larry the Cable Guy will be escorted by a military honor guard when he speaks at its funeral.
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 Lulu Storefront
David Bruce's Apple iBookstore
David Bruce has over 100 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
Presenting
Michael Egan
answered:
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
from Bruce
Anecdotes
• Jello Biafra, lead singer of the Dead Kennedys, collects really strange music. One kind of recordings that he likes is Do-It-Yourself Recordings. On one record that he has, you can hear the wife of one of the musicians say on the record, "Oh, are you recording? Should I turn the dryer off?" He has a DIY album that is rare because most copies were shrink-wrapped on a meat-packing machine-which melted most of the vinyl copies. By the way, Jello enjoys telling a story about German singer Heino, who wore sunglasses and a remarkable blonde hairdo on most of his album covers. A German band called Die Totenhosen-a punk band with humor-had a friend come onstage dressed as Heino with sunglasses and a blonde wig. He claimed to be the real Heino, and he and the band deliberately played Heino's songs very, very badly. This did not please the real Heino, and he sued. Apparently, he did not think that he ought to be the subject of parody. Die Totenhosen responded by having their fans attend the trial dressed like Heino.
• C.J. Ramone (Christopher Joseph Ward) took over on bass after Dee Dee Ramone (Douglas Colvin) left the Ramones. As a youth, he started out playing the drums, but he says that he ran into a problem: "When I was young, I played drums, but they must have been too noisy because I came home one day and they were gone." One Ramones drummer was Marky Ramone (Marc Bell), who says, "I've always drummed in their style-steady and hard-hitting-but it was difficult working myself up to the speed. There are three speeds in the Ramones: fast, pretty fast, and very fast." The Ramones' first album-which was self-titled-is regarded as one of the greatest and most influential rock albums ever, but some critics-of course-did not like it. Stephen Ford referred to their speed when he wrote in the Detroit News, "They don't waste their time-they waste yours."
• Mickey McGowan, creator of the Unknown Museum, enjoys collecting odd records. Among them is an album titled Music to be Murdered By. As you may expect, the portly suspense movie director Alfred Hitchcock introduces each musical selection and tells jokes in his distinctive voice: "Why shouldn't I make a record? After all, my measurements are 33-45-78." About a record titled Companion to TV, Mickey says, "When I played [it], I discovered it was absolutely silent-there's no sound on the record! Whoever made this was pro-television and wanted to make sure that if you got the urge to play a record while watching TV, you couldn't possibly interrupt anything."
• When young-adult author Richard Peck was in junior high school, he was asked to play the sousaphone in the marching band because he was the only student who was tall enough to play it. Richard readily agreed to play the sousaphone because it was so big that he figured that he would not be able to take it home and therefore he would not have to practice playing it at home on the weekends. Unfortunately for Richard, his band director dropped off the sousaphone at Richard's house every Friday. After Richard had practiced playing it on the weekend, his father took the sousaphone back to Richard's school on Monday morning.
• In the 17th century, Irishman Michael Kelly composed theater music and sold wine. His wine shop had this sign: "Wine merchant and composer of music." Richard Brinsley Sheridan preferred Mr. Kelly's taste in wine to his taste in music and advised him to change his sign to this: "Merchant of music and composer of wines." By the way, Dr. Samuel Johnson did not especially like music. He once listened to a virtuoso violinist play a pyrotechnical piece. Hearing a companion remark that the violin piece must have been very difficult to perform, Dr. Johnson remarked, "Difficult! I wish to God that it had been impossible!"
• Steven Tyler of Aerosmith is a hard-working man. For a while, he and the band spent so much time on the road that even when he was home he would wake up and automatically telephone for room service. By the way, he wrote all the lyrics to the songs on the AerosmithROCKSalbum, but accidentally left them in a manila envelope in a taxi. Mr. Tyler says, "I lost the whole thing-all the words to the songs. I had to go back to the Ramada Inn on 8thAvenue and sit with the headphones and bring it all back. I got about 50 percent of it. Can you imagine what was in that cab that went into the wastebasket?"
• Frequently, the question "Stones or Beatles" comes up in discussions about music. Someone asked that question to record producer Guy Picciotto. He replied, "The Smiths." Beth Ditto, lead singer of Gossip and a supporter of riot grrrl music, has two good answers to the question "Ramones or Sex Pistols?" One answer is this: "The Slits." Another answer is to ask this question in reply: "Heavens to Betsy or Bratmobile?"
• While Bob Hope was filming The Road to Hong Kong, he met Zsa Zsa Gabor, who told him, "Bob, darlink, I understand that there is the most vonderful part in your picture for me." Mr. Hope replied, "There sure is, honey. We'll have it written tomorrow." Then Mr. Hope told his writers to create a part for Ms. Gabor.
• Some country and western singers are very practical. For example, when one of Trace Adkin's early wives (not Rhonda) shot him, one of the things he immediately thought about was that he had new carpet and he did not want to bleed on it. So he walked over to a tile floor, collapsed, and bled on the tile.
• Screenwriter Charles MacArthur had an interesting way of convincing movie producers not to change his scripts. He used to climb out the window of the producer's office, then hang on to the window sill with one hand and threaten to let go until the producer agreed not to change his script.
• When Charlie Chaplin was directing and starring in Modern Times, he was on location with a mass of camera equipment and crew members. He looked around and then sadly said, "We used to go into the park with a stepladder, a bucket of whitewash, and Mabel Normand, and make up a picture."
***
© Copyright Bruce D. Bruce; All Rights Reserved
***
Team Coco
CONAN
Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
JD is on vacation.
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
After re-scanning the TV last month, stumbled on NHK (channel 28.3 in LA) - it broadcasts live from Tokyo, 24/7.
The newscasts are wonderfully, precisely written, and there's no chit-chat, just straight news and international weather.
They also carry Grand Sumo highlights, and I'm hooked.
Stayed Too Long
David Letterman
David Letterman says he stuck around on network television about 10 years too long.
He made that admission during an appearance Thursday on Ellen DeGeneres' talk show. Letterman quit in 2015 after 33 years as a late-night host on CBS and NBC, and is beginning his second season on his more leisurely-paced Netflix show.
"That's not true," DeGeneres told him.
"Yes, it is true," Letterman replied. "It turns out nobody had the guts to fire me."
The 71-year-old Letterman, still in his bushy post-retirement beard, said that you want to make sure you have enough energy for other things in life and, while his talk show was on, he didn't.
David Letterman
Oldest Living President
Jimmy Carter
Jimmy Carter has a new title, as of 12 a.m. Friday, as the oldest living former U.S. president.
The title was formally held by the late George H.W. Bush, who died Nov. 30, 2018 at age 94. He was born on June 12, 1924 and lived for 34,504 days, according to Atlanta's Carter Center.
Jimmy Carter was born Oct. 1, 1924 and is currently 94 years old. Tonight, he will have seen 34,505 days in his long and storied life.
Carter was the 39th president of the United States and was born in the small farming town of Plains, Georgia and grew up in the neighboring community of Archery. His father, James Earl Carter Sr. was a farmer and businessman. His mother, Lillian Gordy Carter, was a registered nurse, according to the Jimmy Carter Library.
The Carters have three sons, one daughter, nine grandsons (one deceased), three granddaughters, five great-grandsons and eight great-granddaughters.
Jimmy Carter
Not To Be Rebooted By Disney
Deadpool
Now that the houses of Fox and Disney have joined, superhero fans are chomping at the bit to see the Marvel characters previously owned by Fox join their compadres owned by Disney.
Particularly intriguing is what this may mean for the the X-Men, formerly owned by Fox, and now residing at the House of Mouse.
Dark Phoenix, focussing on Sophie Turner's Jean Grey, will be the first Fox-made X-Men movie to come out of Disney, but after that, it's not known how things may shape up for the plucky band of mutant superheroes.
It's thought that there will be recasts and reboots of all the characters, but there's one that will reportedly be staying just the way he is.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Ryan Reynolds' Deadpool will be the only one of the X-Men to remain untouched by the move.
Deadpool
World's Happiest Country
Finland
Finland has been ranked the happiest country in the world for the second time in a row.
The Nordic nation topped the 2019 World Happiness Report, which ranked 156 countries around the world on factors including life expectancy, freedom, GDP and corruption.
Finland's Nordic neighbours Denmark, Norway and Iceland weren't far behind, taking second, third and fourth place respectively. The Nordic countries have dominated the index since its inception in 2012.
Elsewhere in Europe, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Sweden and Austria also appeared in the top 10. The other two spots in the top 10 happiest countries were filled by New Zealand and Canada, ranking in eighth and ninth place respectively.
The UK came 15th and Ireland was 16th, while the US took 19th place.
Finland
Alarming Increase In School-Age Children
Firearm Deaths
Firearm-related deaths in school-age children are increasing at alarming rates in the United States where homicide rates are about 6- to 9-fold higher than those in comparably developed countries. This epidemic poses increasingly major clinical, public health and policy challenges.
A study led by researchers at Florida Atlantic University's Schmidt College of Medicine explored temporal trends in deaths from firearms among U.S. schoolchildren by age and race from 1999 to 2017. Their report quantifies these recent epidemics using data from the Multiple Cause of Death Files of the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS).
Results of the study, just published in the American Journal of Medicine, show that from 1999 to 2017, 38,942 firearm-related deaths occurred in 5 to 18 year olds. These included 6,464 deaths in children between the ages of 5 to 14 years old (average of 340 deaths per year), and 32,478 deaths in children between the ages of 15 to 18 years old (average of 2,050 deaths per year).
"It is sobering that in 2017, there were 144 police officers who died in the line of duty and about 1,000 active duty military throughout the world who died, whereas 2,462 school-age children were killed by firearms," said Charles H. Hennekens, M.D., senior author, first Sir Richard Doll Professor, and senior academic advisor in FAU's Schmidt College of Medicine.
Statistically significant increases in firearm-related deaths began in 2009, with the first epidemic among 5 to 14 year olds followed by a second epidemic that began in 2014 among 15 to 18 year olds. Each of these epidemics has continued through 2017, the most recent year for which U.S. mortality data are currently available. Percentages of all deaths due to firearms were 5.6 at ages 5 to 14 years old and 19.9 at ages 15 to 18 years old.
Firearm Deaths
Dizzying Diversity Of Cambrian Life
Newfound Fossils
Along the banks of China's Danshui River lies a treasure trove of fossils that may rival the most famous Cambrian fossil assemblage of all, Canada's Burgess Shale. The roughly 518-million-year-old site contains a dizzying abundance of beautifully preserved weird and wonderful life-forms, from jellyfish and comb jellies to arthropods and algae.
So far, researchers led by paleontologist Dongjing Fu of Northwest University in Xian, China, have collected 4,351 specimens at the new site, representing 101 different taxa, or groups of organisms. Of those taxa, about 53 percent have never before been observed, Fu and her colleagues report in the March 22 Science - not even at other well-known Cambrian fossil sites such as the 508-million-year-old Burgess Shale or a 518-million-year-old site known as Chengjiang, also in China.
"It's an exciting discovery," says Jean-Bernard Caron, a paleontologist at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto who wasn't involved in the study. During the Cambrian Period, which began about 542 million years ago, life diversified extremely rapidly. So many new forms appeared in such a relatively short period of time that this diversification is known as the Cambrian explosion. The find "shows that there's hope for new discoveries" of other Cambrian fossil sites, he says.
The new fossil trove, called the Qingjiang biota, was first spotted in 2007, says coauthor Xingliang Zhang, a paleontologist also at Northwest University. "I have been working on Burgess Shale-type fossils for many years, and know what kind of rocks preserve [them]," Zhang says.
During a field expedition that year, he and his students were investigating a different rock layer dating to the Cambrian. At lunchtime, he says, he happened to sit on the next lower layer of rocks as it was being lapped by the river's water - and immediately recognized that the fine clay layer was the perfect preservation setting for fossils. "We split the clay stone and I found a Leanchoilia [a kind of segmented arthropod] quickly." Many more discoveries soon followed.
Newfound Fossils
Renames Capital 'Nursultan'
Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan's parliament on Wednesday voted to rename the country's capital in honour of long-time ruler Nursultan Nazarbayev, a day after he resigned as president.
"Astana is now officially renamed Nursultan," the state-owned Kazinform news agency said after a parliamentary vote.
Kazakhstan's new interim president Kassym-Jomart Tokayev proposed renaming the capital after he was sworn in following Nazarbayev's shock resignation on Tuesday.
In his first official act, Tokayev asked that Astana -- the gleaming new capital Nazarbayev erected in the country's vast steppes -- be renamed "Nursultan" -- which means "Sultan of Light" in Kazakh and other Turkic languages.
Astana, the government's showpiece project on the Ishim river in northern Kazakhstan, took over as the capital more than 20 years ago.
Kazakhstan
| CURRENT MOON lunar phases |
