Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Paul Waldman: Elizabeth Warren's wealth tax idea couldn't come at a better time (Washington Post)
In the latest of a series of policy proposals meant to define her presidential campaign, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) has debuted a plan for a wealth tax on the super-rich. This is an idea that is somewhat controversial. But what isn't in doubt is that her timing couldn't be much better, as she's giving new propulsion to an ongoing discussion about how best to tax the wealthy. Whether she intended it or not (and she probably did), she has baited conservatives into loudly defending the prerogative of the wealthy to pay as little in taxes as possible.
Jeremy Littau: The Crisis Facing American Journalism Did Not Start With the Internet (Slate)
For decades, newspaper conglomerates lapped up profits and failed to adapt. Our communities are worse off for their folly.
Lucy Mangan: Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt review - weird, messy and funny to the very end (The Guardian)
From millennials to sexual harassment, the Netflix sitcom's last ever season takes aim at topical issues - and misses by a mile. Still, it's as hilarious as ever
Alison Flood: Stonewall defends 'vital' LGBT children's books after spate of ban attempts (The Guardian)
… separate moves in Canada and the US threatened to restrict young readers' access to LGBT-themed illustrated stories.
Alison Flood: "'It has made me want to live': public support for lesbian novelist Radclyffe Hall over banned book revealed" (The Guardian)
The Well of Loneliness was censored after a campaign by the Sunday Express, but archives show thousands of readers wrote to express thanks for the book.
Oliver Burkeman: Life admin is boring and ceaseless but these tricks can help (The Guardian)
It's helpful to have a reminder that life admin exists, in great quantity - and that living as if it doesn't is a recipe for unnecessary stress.
Jonathan Jones: "John Ruskin: The Power of Seeing review - oddball or visionary?" (The Guardian)
Art, Ruskin believed, was for everyone. And everyone needs it. The industrial working class deserved not just bread but beauty. The most beautiful thing in this exhibition, however, is not a work of art. It's the collection of minerals Ruskin presented to his people's museum. These gorgeous rocks set this exhibition alight with their strong colours and brilliant crystal facets: purple amethyst, snow-white quartz, bubbling haematite.
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Presenting
Michael Egan
said:
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Reader Comment
'What? just... What?' Outrage
'What? just... What?' Outrage
Watching 'Meet The Press' yesterday, Chuck Todd was interviewing Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-delusional) and Todd asked him, "Then why did he (T-rump) shut down the government?"... McCarthy answered, "He did not shut down the government. Let's be very clear..." Then the twit blathers on implying Chuck Schumer was responsible.
"WHAT?", I shouted... then I stood up and shouted again, "WHAT? WHAT?". I then stormed out of the room with "I CAN'T LISTEN TO THIS BULLSHIT!"
It's in the transcript... Look it up...
George Orwell warned us... "The very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world. Lies will pass into history."
BadtotheboneBob...
Thanks, Robert!
Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
from Bruce
Anecdotes - Charity
• Chicago, Illinois, resident Carlo Garcia says, "One day this idea popped into my head: How hard would it be to give back to charity every day? What's stopping us from doing that? Because I don't make a whole lot of money, I had to look at my finances and see what areas of unnecessary spending I could cut." He decided to do just that, recording his efforts on his blog titled Living Philanthropic. Putting his idea into action, he started making small changes to his life, such as not buying Starbucks coffee but instead drinking the free coffee at work so that he could donate to charity the money he used to spend on Starbucks coffee. And so, on December 22, 2010, Mr. Garcia had not bought Starbucks coffee for over 230 days. Each day, he donates amounts of money ranging from $5 to $200 to non-profit charities. He says, "You don't have to be rich and famous to make a little bit of good." Whenever Mr. Garcia makes a small donation to a charity, the readers of his blog often also make small donations to the same charity. These small donations add up. For example, Mr. Garcia once gave $10 to the charity Alex's Lemonade Stand (which raises money for childhood cancer research); the followers of his blog donated an additional $567. One person who has been inspired by Mr. Garcia's microphilanthropy is Julie Gosselin, a professor in Ottawa, Canada, who says, "It changed my outlook about charity and giving. It made me think of giving a little bit less but more regularly, and developing a life ethic about giving to others. It doesn't have to happen around Christmastime; people need things all year long." She adds, "We have to help each other. Me having a little bit less is far better than people having none."
• In Buffalo, New York, Waldemar Kaminski ran a food stand in Broadway Market for over 50 years. He invested his money in the stock market, grew rich, and anonymously gave away millions of dollars. After his death in 2006, many recipients of his charity came forward. Anne Gioia, co-founder of the Roswell Park Alliance Foundation, a medical facility to which Mr. Kaminski gave many millions of dollars, said, "He didn't want anyone to know him, but I just had to thank him. Now I think we should shout it from the rooftops." Mr. Kaminski donated $1 million for an endowed chair in pediatrics for the facility; he also donated $1 million to build a two-acre park for the campus of the facility. Ms. Gioia said, "He felt that if you died a wealthy person, you had not lived a worthwhile life." He gave to many other charities as well, and he also helped individual families with college tuition and with mortgage payments. One of his nieces, Marsha Kaminski, who lives in Oakland, CA, said, "It wasn't a handout. He was supportive and helped them maintain their dignity. If they were helping themselves, he wanted to help, too." She added, "He didn't need the material things for happiness. He enjoyed just being with people and doing what he could for them."
• Some charities send free gifts to people they hope will donate or will continue to donate money to them. (These are known as "guilt gifts.") However, as you would expect, sometimes theses gifts backfire and get the recipients angry at the charity. An actress friend of The Guardian columnist Michelle Hanson received a gift of slippers from a charity she supported. Angry, she sent the slippers back. When she received a letter asking if she had received the slippers, she grew angrier and sent the letter back. Then they sent her a gift of gloves. This didn't help; after all, the actress had been hoping that the money she had given the charity would be spent on helping the needy, not on providing her with slippers and gloves that she didn't want or need.
• Vinoba Bhave worked with Mahatma Gandhi to win independence for India, and after the assassination of Gandhi, he was regarded as Gandhi's spiritual successor. He started the bhoodan yagna, or land-gift movement. Walking throughout India, he asked wealthy people to donate land to poor people. Many people did this, donating millions of acres of land to be used by the poor. In one case, a poor man gave one-thirteenth of an acre of land because he had started a job at a factory. Vinoba Bhave returned the land, saying that the man was poor and ought to be given land instead of donating it.
• A beggar requested alms of R. Israel, the Zaddik of Pylov, who felt sorry for the beggar and gave him some coins. But as the beggar was going away, R. Israel ran after him and gave him more money. Some witnesses were puzzled by this, and they asked why R. Israel had given extra money to the beggar. R. Israel explained that he had felt sorry for the beggar and had given him money, but then he had realized that the reason he had given the beggar money was not charity but instead to make himself feel better. Since Jews are required to give charity, he had then given the beggar the extra coins that really were for the beggar and so really were charity.
• Rabbi Haim Eliezer Waks immigrated to Israel, where he advised the Jews to engage in agriculture rather relying on halukah (charity raised outside Israel for the Jews living in Israel). Some of the Jews pointed out that the halukah was steady, whereas agriculture is uncertain. Rabbi Haim asked, "What will you do if the halukah money suddenly stops?" They replied, "We are not worried about tomorrow." Rabbi Haim told them, "Then you are like the wicked person who says, 'Why should I be concerned about the tomorrow of the World to Come? I live only for today.'"
• Rabbi Gamliel believed in giving charity cheerfully. After all, he explained, money given to the poor is not lost. God guarantees the money given to the poor, and he returns with interest in the next life what is given away in this life.
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Reader Comment
Current Events
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We are all only temporarily able bodied.
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Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
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In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Dear old Dad celebrated his 94th birthday at his 'baby' sister's (she's only 86) - she served Gnocchi.
Lifetime Achievement Award
Alan Alda
Alan Alda, best known for playing a wise-cracking Army doctor on the long-running anti-war television comedy "M*A*S*H," received a lifetime achievement award from his fellow actors on Sunday, celebrating a 60-year career on stage and screen.
Alda, 82, who announced in July that he had been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease three years earlier, was presented the honor by film star and one-time-costar Tom Hanks at the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) awards dinner in Los Angeles.
Declaring it was every actor's job to "get inside a character's head and to search for a way to see life from that person's point of view."
"It may never have been more urgent to see the world through another person's eyes than when a culture is divided so sharply," he added.
"The West Wing" earned Alda his sixth Emmy Award, on top of five previous Emmys for his work on "M*A*S*H." He is the only performer to win Emmys for acting, directing and writing on the same series. He also was a three-time Tony Award nominee for his Broadway work, most recently in 2005 for "Glengarry Glen Ross."
Alan Alda
SAG Awards Acceptance Speech
Patricia Arquette
Patricia Arquette did not hold back during her Screen Actors Guild acceptance speech.
The 50-year-old actress took home the 2019 SAG Award in the Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Television Movie or Miniseries category for her role in Escape at Dannemora. Taking the stage to accept the honor, Arquette made sure to thank her fellow nominees, her family and all her co-stars profusely before getting down to business.
First, she called on all fellow actors to keep an eye out for "production companies that are not paying people their overtime and meal penalties." Then, after her SAG/AFTRA business was done, she turned her attention to the White House.
"Thank you to Robert Mueller, and everyone working to make sure that we have sovereignty for the United States of America," Arquette said, referring to the Special Prosecutor's investigation into Russian interference related to the election of President Donald Trump.
Patricia Arquette
Super Bowl Message
Daniel Radcliffe
Daniel Radcliffe, who will one day be introduced as something other than the star of the Harry Potter series (but today isn't that day), is ready for the Super Bowl.
He revealed as much in an interview with Variety at the Sundance Film Festival, which Radcliffe is attending to promote his upcoming TBS series Miracle Workers. Asked who he's rooting for in the Feb. 3 showdown between the New England Patriots and Los Angeles Ram, he responded with a succinct, matter-of-fact answer: "Rams."
Then he added: "Because, like, the whole world is rooting against the Patriots. Like... sorry."
That's mostly true. There are a few U.S. states that fall under the banner of "New England" and most of those people are probably backing the Pats. But this is also a team that's been to the Super Bowl nine times since the year 2000, with five wins. They're not exactly an underdog.
(The fact that team owner Robert Kraft, coach Bill Belichick, and quarterback Tom Brady are all Donald Trump pals hasn't helped the Pats popularity either.)
Daniel Radcliffe
Calls for Reunion
David Crosby
Rock legend David Crosby reached out to his estranged bandmates Stephen Stills, Graham Nash and Neil Young and said he'd love to make music with them again.
"I want to work with all four of us. That's what I want to do," the singer said Sunday during an interview at TheWrap studio following the Sundance premiere of the new documentary "David Crosby: Remember My Name."
"I'll take more blame than anybody for being a s-head to my friends in that group," he added.
Crosby went on: "If I had a chance to talk to him [Nash] I'd sit down and say: 'I haven't changed, I'm the same f-up you started with in the first place. Here I am. I'm trying to be a decent guy. And if you want to make some music, I'd love to.'"
But Crosby went on to say he would really like to see CSNY - the band including Neil Young - play together again. Young has not spoken to Crosby since he learned of a derogatory remark Crosby made about Daryl Hannah, who Young married last year.
David Crosby
Says He Feels Terrible
Brokaw
NBC's Tom Brokaw says he feels terrible that his comments on "Meet the Press" Sunday that Hispanics should work harder at assimilation "offended some members of that proud culture."
The former "NBC Nightly News" anchor tweeted in response to a social media backlash to what he had said earlier in the day during a discussion of the proposed border wall.
On the show, Brokaw said that many Republicans fear the rise of a new constituency in American politics "who will come here and all be Democrats.
"Also, I hear, when I push people a little harder, (people who say) 'well, I don't know whether I want brown grandbabies,'" he said. "I mean, that's also a part of it. It's the intermarriage that is going on and the cultures that are conflicting with each other."
The 78-year-old journalist said he's been saying for a long time that Hispanics need to work harder at assimilation.
Brokaw
Scrambled
Jet Fighters
US and Canadian fighter jets were scrambled to intercept two Russian strategic bombers heading for the North American coastline.
Two F-22 and two CF-18 jets identified the Russian nuclear-capable aircraft when they entered an area near Alaska patrolled by the Royal Canadian Air Force, according to the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD).
The organisation patrols the skies above the US and Canada using radar, satellites and fighter aircraft.
The US Air Force sent planes from its air base in Alaska.
There were no reports of conflict.
Jet Fighters
Transmit Whispers Only You Can Hear
Lasers
New technology being developed by the MIT's Lincoln Laboratory uses laser light to excite moisture in the air surrounding a target's ear, causing it to quietly whisper a personal message from several metres away.
"Our system can be used from some distance away to beam information directly to someone's ear," says MIT team leader and physicist Charles M. Wynn.
You probably don't need us to count off potential applications for such a device, which range from military applications to targeted advertising.
Pretty much anywhere ambient noise is a problem - or earphones are unsuitable - a laser-tongued whisper could do the job.
The heart of MIT's new technology is a 1.9 micrometre thulium laser. Thanks to a principle called the photoacoustic effect, water vapour in the air absorbs the laser's emission, causing it to vibrate at an audible frequency.
Lasers
Different In North and South Hemispheres
Auroras
Auroras paint the sky around the poles when the sun is particularly active, flinging highly charged particles at Earth's atmosphere. Scientists once thought that the gorgeous events were mirror images, but to their surprise, displays at the north (the aurora borealis) and south (the aurora australis) don't precisely match.
Ever since scientists realized these two celestial displays don't line up, they've been trying to sort out why. Now, a team of researchers thinks it has found the reason - asymmetry in Earth's magnetic tail. But what's stranger is that the asymmetry is caused by the precise inverse of what scientists expected.
"The reason this is exciting is that earlier we have thought that the asymmetry in the system enters the magnetosphere by a mechanism called tail reconnection," Anders Ohma, a doctoral candidate at the University of Bergen in Norway and lead author on the new study, said in a statement released by the journal. "What this paper shows is that it's possible that it is actually the opposite." [Northern Lights Photos: The Amazing Auroras on Earth]
It all comes down to Earth's magnetic tail, which is created by interactions between our planet and the sun. Those interactions begin with Earth's magnetic field, which scientists believe springs from the innards swirlingthrough Earth's core and creating an electrical charge. Magnetic fields - from refrigerators to planets - create invisible magnetic field lines arcing between the North and South Poles that can govern the behavior of material around them.
But Earth's magnetic field isn't the only one out there - the sun also has one, which affects the constant flow of highly charged plasma particles that streams out in every direction. The magnetic field embedded in that stream, called the solar wind, interferes with the one Earth produces, squishing it on the daylit side of Earth facing the sun and stretching it on the nightside facing away from the sun into a tail-like shape.
Auroras
Weekend Box Office
'Glass'
Matthew McConaughey notched one of the worst debuts of his career, Oscar nominees saw only modest bumps and M. Night Shyamalan's "Glass" easily remained No. 1 on a quiet weekend in movie theaters.
The weekend's two new wide releases - McConaughey's tropic noir "Serenity" and the updated King Arthur tale "The Kid Who Would Be King" - both flopped with moviegoers who instead continued to flock to "Glass" and Kevin Hart's "The Upside."
The weekend's biggest budget new entry, "The Kid Who Would Be King," opened poorly with $7.3 million against a $59 million budget. The 20th Century Fox release, produced by Working Title, was written and directed by "Attack the Block" filmmaker Joe Cornish. In his modern-day London version of the legend, a working-class boy pulls Excalibur from a stone.
Smaller still was "Serenity," from the recently launched distributor Aviron Pictures. Though boasting a respected writer-director (Steven Knight, the creator of "Peaky Blinders" and maker of 2013's "Locke") and a starry cast including Anne Hathaway and Jason Clarke, "Serenity" made only a minor disturbance at the box office with $4.8 million in ticket sales.
The weekend was quiet even by the low standards of January. Tickets sales were down 30 percent from the same weekend last year, according to Comscore. After a 2018 of record box office, the slow start to 2019 is putting Hollywood in a hole. Overall ticket sales are down 12.7 percent from the same point last year.
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore. Where available, the latest international numbers for Friday through Sunday are also included. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.
1. "Glass," $19 million ($23 million international).
2. "The Upside," $12.2 million ($1.1 million international).
3. "Aquaman," $7.4 million ($7.8 million international).
4. "The Kid Who Would Be King," $7.3 million ($1.9 million international)
5. "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse," $6.2 million ($2.8 million international).
6. "Green Book," $5.4 million ($5.7 million international).
7. "A Dog's Way Home," $5.2 million ($4.5 million international).
8. "Serenity," $4.8 million ($1 million international).
9. "Escape Room," $4.3 million ($7.4 million international).
10. "Mary Poppins Returns," $3.1 million ($3.9 million international).
'Glass'
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