Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Paul Krugman Armpits, White Ghettos and Contempt (NY Times)
Who really despises the American heartland?
Mary Beard: The age of majority (A Don's Life)
I tweeted earlier in the week (after, credit where it is due, some tart comments from the husband) that it was somewhat inconsistent that parliamentarians who had refused to give 16 - 18 year olds a vote in the referendum should all be so keen on what 16-year-old Greta Thunberg had to say.
Greg Sargent: "Joe Biden identifies the No. 1 threat: Trump" (Washington Post)
Right now, it remains unclear whether Democrats are prepared to adopt the Total War footing that the moment increasingly calls for. Democrats are still debating how aggressively to combat Trump's ongoing treatment of House oversight efforts as fundamentally illegitimate, say, by holding uncooperative officials in contempt. With Trump gambling that Democrats will prove too squeamish to pull the impeachment trigger, neutering themselves, it's hard to have confidence that his bet will prove to be a wrong one.
Jonathan Chait: With Mueller Gone, the Threat of a Lawless President Is Very Alive (NY Mag)
The most revelatory details in Robert Mueller's largely familiar report concerned the repeated refusal of President Trump's aides to carry out his most Nixonian demands. It was probably because these details were new that they formed the basis for the narrative that has taken shape around the report: that Trump has behaved irrationally and ineffectually, attempting to abuse his powers without doing any real damage. That conclusion is far too optimistic.
Lily Meyer: Translators and Other Icons (Public Books)
Writers are sexy figures. Until recently, we tended to imagine them as drunk and glamorous, Hemingway at the bar in Cuba or Frank O'Hara partying with artists. Now that pop culture has become health-obsessed, the internet is saturated with writers' daily routines and snacking habits. But what about translators? What do they-or rather, we-do all day? Online, we're nearly invisible.
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
took the day off.
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
from Bruce
Anecdotes
• On 1 September 2010, Graham Denison donated a kidney to his daughter, Kaye Noone, a 28-year-old schoolteacher in Teesside, England. At age 13, Kaye was diagnosed with polycystic kidney syndrome. For 15 years, she often suffered infections and required repeated trips to hospitals, and eventually she needed dialysis and then a transplant. Kaye said about her father, "After the operation, he was telling people, 'I've given my daughter life twice. Once when she was born and then again two days ago.' I think it's absolutely amazing. He's an amazing dad anyway. There's an extra bond now. I feel closer to him. I'm really grateful and he knows - I've said 'thank you' a lot! I ask him how he is all the time and he's really well." The transplant frees her from the three hours of dialysis that she needed daily. Kaye said, "I'm young, had just got married, and am quite career orientated, so I was worried three hours a day on dialysis would affect my lifestyle. I wasn't worried about having a transplant because I always saw it as the solution and dialysis as a temporary measure. Because I'd been in hospital quite a lot, I was reassuring dad. But when I asked him if he was nervous, he said he wasn't. He's the kind of guy who just gets on with things." Her father, Graham, a computer engineer, said that he had "only done what any parent would do." He said that he is proud of Kaye, who graduated from a university despite being forced to take time off due to her bad health. He called her his "little hero." Graham said, "The fact it is your child overrules any risks or nerves that you might have. I couldn't have not done it. I don't feel particularly brave. You just feel you've done your duty. You've done what any parent would do." He supports organ donation: "I think it's a shame wasting organs when someone dies." Kaye said, "I know how lucky I was to have someone who was able to give me a kidney as 90% of organs needed are kidneys, according to UK Kidney Research. If more people were on the register, we would be able to keep more people alive for longer."
• In 2002, Rebecca Hancock, age three, saved the lives of her twin baby brothers. Alex and Jake, nine months old, had a rare genetic disease that was harming their immune system. Without a bone marrow transplant, they would be dead by age one. Their parents, Emma and Tim, of Maidstone, Kent, England, were not good matches, but sister Rebecca was a perfect match. Emma, age 23, said, "I cried when it dawned on me that Rebecca was the one who would probably save their lives. We didn't think she would want to have the operation. I asked her, saying, 'You know that little bit of blood the doctors took from you? It is going to make Alex and Jake better. Would you like to give some more blood so that you can make them better?' She just looked at me and simply said, 'Yeah, okay.' It was if she was saying, 'No problem - piece of cake.' We were totally overjoyed. They told us that most adults are laid up for a week after giving their bone marrow. But Rebecca was up next day, running up and down the corridors. It was fantastic to see." What about the twins? Emma said, "They are doing really well. They will have to go to hospital regularly until they are 18 and they are on five drugs a day as they cope with the new marrow, but it seems to have been successful already." Emma added, "We are so proud of Rebecca. She is being spoiled rotten at the moment because she really is our little heroine."
• In September 2001, Ben Ferguson, age four, became Scotland's first patient to receive a grandparent-donated kidney. Ben had suffered from kidney problems (renal failure) all his life; he even had to have one kidney removed and had been going through dialysis. In 2000, doctors at the Royal Hospital for Sick Children at Yorkhill in Glasgow decided that he needed a kidney transplant. His parents, Angela and Sam, from Old Kilpatrick, Dunbartonshire, were unsuitable donors. Fortunately, one of his grandfathers, 54-year-old Joe Boyd, was a perfect match. Mr. Boyd, a construction site manager in excellent health, said, "It was fantastic being able to give this gift to my grandson, and I am delighted the operation has gone so well. The best part is being able to see the difference it has made to little Ben, and hopefully he will now lead a full and active life free from health worries." Dr. Anna Murphy, a consultant pediatrician at Yorkhill and Ben's pediatrician since his birth, said, "Everyone is delighted at how well the operation has gone and how well both Ben and Joe are doing. The bond between the two has been very strong ever since Ben was born, and I know Joe is overjoyed that he has been able to give this gift to him. Ben really has beaten all the odds to come this far; he is a very determined little lad and has impressed us all with his courage."
• In 2009, Drew Swank, a 17-year-old living in Spokane, Washington, was hit by an opposing player in a football game. He was taken to Sacred Heart, where he died. His family donated his organs to seven people, whose lives were saved or whose sight was restored. His mother, Patti, said, "I knew when his accident, when he, he didn't make it that he would want to do that." His father, Don, said, "We met Rocky, who received Drew's lungs, he let us listen to Drew's, our son's, lungs with a stethoscope and how wonderful that is." Patti remembered about Drew, "Out of the blue he asked me, 'Mom, what do you think about organ donation?' and I think it had to do with he just got his drivers license and they asked that." His sister, Tara, said, "Drew is a hero. He's a hero to everyone in our family."
• "I had to have a complete liver transplant." - Shelley Fabares, actress in Coach and The Donna Reed Show.
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© Copyright Bruce D. Bruce; All Rights Reserved
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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
Sure am enjoying Twin Peaks on Decades.
Have a much better TV this time.
NBC Taking Steps To Remove From Netflix
'The Office'
According to Nielsen data covering the 12 months that ended this past July, Netflix users during that span watched The Office for 45.8 billion minutes.
That's according to a new report today from The Wall Street Journal, which is topped by the on-again, off-again news that Netflix may finally be poised to lose what looks to be its number 1 show - the NBC mockumentary about the daily goings on inside a regional office of a middling paper supply company. NBC, according to the report, has apparently begun talks to pull The Office from Netflix once the licensing contract with the streamer expires in 2021, something that, as the statistic in the first paragraph should make clear, would be a huge loss for Netflix.
The series, which ran for nine seasons on NBC, would become a staple of the streaming service that NBCUniversal is preparing to launch, which comes at a time when legacy media conglomerates like NBC are racing to grab as many consumer subscription dollars as they can. Meanwhile, Netflix is likewise racing to build out a library of its own exclusive original content as fast as it can to help compensate for the loss of third-party content as companies move their licensed properties, like The Office, back to their own services.
To be sure, Netflix has done an admirable job so far of building out a library of its own original content. Shows like Stranger Things and The Crown have solid fanbases built around them - though they don't hold a candle to how passionately fans of The Office feel about the beloved workplace comedy.
Per the WSJ: "Although Netflix has burnished its brand with a flood of original programs such as Stranger Things and The Crown - and spends most of its time on quarterly earnings calls discussing that content - nonoriginal 'library programming' made up 72% of the minutes people spent watching Netflix as of October, according to the Nielsen data. That means reruns, and most of them are made by Netflix's rivals."
'The Office'
World Poll
Stress
Americans are among the most stressed people in the world, says a new survey.
Last year, Americans reported feeling stress, anger, and worry at the highest levels in a decade, according to the survey, part of an annual Gallup poll of more than 150,000 people around the world, released Thursday.
For the annual poll, started in 2005, Gallup asks individuals about whether they have experienced a handful of positive or negative feelings the day before being interviewed.
In the United States, about 55 percent of adults said they had experienced stress during "a lot of the day" prior, compared with 35 percent globally. That put the country on par with Greece, which had led the rankings on stress since 2012.
When Gallup investigated the responses more closely, it found that being under 50, earning a low income, and having a dim view of President Trump's job performance were correlated with negative experiences among US adults.
Stress
Google Thanos For An Easter Egg
Avengers: End Game
Warning: This post contains Avengers spoilers.
Certain types of Avengers fans have been avoiding the web and social media for weeks to avoid spoilers for the franchise's latest installment The Avengers: End Game. Other types of fans, are crawling the web for any hint of their favorite superheroes fate or any secret Easter eggs left by Marvel and its parent company, Disney. Either type of fan should go ahead and Google "Thanos" on the search engine.
If you go to Google's search window and type in the name of the super-villain "Thanos" who may have disappeared half of the planet's population in a bid to balance the universe. Once that's done, click on the golden glove that appears on the right side of the screen. Despite the lack of IRL Infinity Stones, as 9to5Google and others have noted, the glove will snap and then half the search results will turn to dust while sound effects waft out of your speakers. Luckily the process is reversible, by simply clicking the glove once again and triggering the Time Stone that puts everything back to normal.
As Danny Sullivan, Google's public liaison of search, said on Twitter, "It was just a thing we thought would be fun, because it's nice to have a little fun in life." He's right! It's the perfect little bit of entertainment for fans who want to get in on The Avengers: Endgame action, without spoiling themselves for the film.
Avengers: End Game
'Can Actually Smell'
Human Tongues
Human tongues can smell - in a manner of speaking. Scientists determined the same 'smell sensors' found in people's noses are also present in the tongue.
The find suggests that the interaction between smell and taste may actually begin in the tongue, and not in the brain, as previously believed.
Most of us equate flavour with taste, but the distinctive flavour of most foods and drinks comes more from smell than it does from taste.
Researchers kept human taste cells alive in the lab, and found that they contain many of the key molecules found in smell receptors.
"The presence of olfactory receptors and taste receptors in the same cell will provide us with exciting opportunities to study interactions between odour and taste stimuli on the tongue," Lead author Mehmet Hakan Ozdener at the Monell Center said.
Human Tongues
Fluffs NRA
45
President Donald Trump (R-Dumpy) told the National Rifle Association on Friday he was pulling the United States out of an international arms treaty signed in 2013 by then-President Barack Obama but opposed by the NRA and other conservative groups.
Trump told members of the gun lobby at an annual meeting he intends to revoke the status of the United States as a signatory to the Arms Trade Treaty, which was never ratified by the U.S. Senate.
"We're taking our signature back," Trump said to thousands of cheering attendees, many wearing red hats emblazoned with the Republican president's "Make America Great Again" slogan.
On Twitter, Trump called the decision a defense of "American sovereignty." In reversing the U.S. position on the pact, he wrote, "We will never allow foreign bureaucrats to trample on your Second Amendment freedoms."
The agreement covers weapons exports, ranging from small firearms to tanks, but not domestic sales.
45
Starr Report Veteran
Paul Rosenzweig
A member of the independent counsel team that recommended the impeachment of President Bill Clinton says that President Trump's (R-Crooked) attempts to obstruct justice are "blunter by a thousandfold" than anything Clinton did and more than justifies the House Judiciary Committee opening impeachment proceedings.
In an interview with the Yahoo News podcast "Skullduggery," Paul Rosenzweig, who served as a senior counsel to Ken Starr, said that a "significant number" of his former colleagues from the independent counsel office share his views - although notably not Starr himself.
"My view is that there's ample reason right now for the House Judiciary Committee to begin an impeachment inquiry … and if it were up to me, I would recommend them to impeach," said Rosenzweig. "I mean, if I were called to testify today at the first of those hearings, I would say that Trump's obstruction of justice and frankly, more importantly, Trump's dereliction of duty in failing to address the issue of Russian interference in our electoral processes, are by themselves grounds for his impeachment.
"Add to that, his recalcitrance in responding to [special counsel Robert] Mueller and his stonewalling of congressional investigations and the case becomes … much more compelling than that which attended the [impeachment] recommendation with respect to Clinton," Rosenzweig added.
Paul Rosenzweig
Tallest Waves Getting Taller
Southern Ocean
The frigid Southern Ocean is well known for its brutal storms, which can sink ships and trigger coastal flooding on distant tropical islands. Now, a new study suggests the biggest waves there-already the world's largest-are getting bigger, thanks to faster winds attributed to climate change.
Peter Ruggiero, a geophysicist at Oregon State University in Corvallis who was not involved in the study, calls the increase "substantial," and says he is particularly concerned by evidence that the tallest waves are gaining height at the fastest rate. "If [those waves hit] at high tide, it could be potentially catastrophic."
For the past 33 years, global satellites have been collecting data on ocean waves-and the winds that drive them. By bouncing energy pulses off wave crests and measuring the time those pulses take to come back, instruments called altimeters aboard satellites can measure wave height-the taller the waves, the faster the signal returns. Other satellite instruments monitor changes in the reflectivity of the ocean surface, which is reduced by wind-generated ripples, to estimate the speed of ocean winds. But interpreting the data is difficult: Different satellites can give different estimates of wind speed, for instance.
To minimize those discrepancies, physical oceanographer Ian Young at the University of Melbourne in Australia, and mathematician Agustinus Ribal at Hasanuddin University in Makassar, Indonesia, compared information from different satellites and calibrated their data against an independent data set collected by a global network of buoys floating in the ocean. When they were done, two trends stood out: Since 1985, average ocean wind speeds in most of the world have increased between 1 centimeter and 2 centimeters per second per year, leading to increases in wave height in many places.
In the Southern Ocean, the trends are particularly strong. For instance, although average wind speeds there have increased by 2 centimeters per second each year, the speed of the top 10% fastest winds has increased by 5 centimeters per second per year. And although average wave heights there have increased by just 0.3 centimeters per year, the top 10% highest has grown by an average of 1 centimeter per year-a growth of 30 centimeters since 1985, they report today in Science.
Southern Ocean
'World First'
Pikachu
Pikachu, a well-loved housecat who died in January from complications following a battle with diabetes, is going to blast off.
Owner Steve Munt plans to send some of Pikachu's ashes into space, according to Space.com - a strange tribute that will make Pikachu the first cremated cat to enter orbit.
Shuttling Pikachu into the cosmos will be pet memorial service Celestis Pets, an offshoot of the human space memorial company Celestis.
Munt is currently raising money through a GoFundMe to help pay for Pikachu's US$5,000 ticket, but he told Space.com that he already bought the ticket for a launch "sometime in the next 18 months" anyway.
Celestis Pets has already launched the cremated remains of two dogs into orbit, where the company says the ashes will remain until they are vaporized upon re-entering the atmosphere.
Pikachu
'Not-Aurora'
STEVE
The mysterious purple skyglow named STEVE was unmasked last year. Physicists proved that STEVE was not a new kind of aurora - in fact, it's not any kind of aurora at all. But that still left one big, gaping question: What exactly is it?
Now we have the answer. Unlike the charged particles of the solar wind raining into the ionosphere and exciting the atoms therein to produce auroras, STEVE is created by a river of charged particles flowing through Earth's ionosphere.
The phenomenon has been known by photographers and aurora chasers for decades, who first gave it the nickname 'steve'; but it only became known to scientists in 2016. They officially named it Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement (STEVE), and initially determined it was a type of aurora.
It appears as long, glowing ribbons of purple that stream across the sky, sometimes accompanied by a ribbon of striped green glow, referred to as the "picket fence".
Now, using satellite data and ground photographs of the phenomenon, space physicists have located STEVE's source region in space, and identified the mechanisms behind both STEVE and the picket fence.
STEVE
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