Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Paul Krugman: The Trouble With Joe and Bernie (NY Times)
[Elizabeth] Warren's proposals are very progressive, but they're also incremental, and even her fairly radical ideas, like her proposed wealth tax, poll well. Anyone who watched Kamala Harris at Wednesday's Barr hearing knows that she has no illusions about the state of partisanship. Biden and Sanders, however, come across as romantics. Biden appears stuck in the past, when real bipartisanship sometimes happened. Sanders appears to live in an imaginary future, where a popular tidal wave washes away all political obstacles. Neither man seems ready for the tough fights that will follow even if he wins.
Paul Waldman: As Democrats prep for another health-care election, Trump gives them a big assist (Washington Post)
Health care is guaranteed to be a key issue in 2020, and it won't be good for the GOP.
Mary Beard: Autumn Journal and Angela Davis (TLS)
It was thinking back to my discovery of [Louis] MacNeice and to what it had been like to do Classics at school that I remembered Angela Davis. As I explained on Friday, I was a strangely split teenager: a radical revolutionary mostly in my head (though I did deliver Black Power leaflets around the posher suburbs of Shrewsbury, to rather little effect I imagine); and more most of the time an obedient little swot. It was just before my encounter with Autumn Journal that I persuaded my parents to let me put up a poster of Angela Davis (then in prison) above the kitchen table where I used to do my homework, struggle with Thucydides, learn my irregular verbs and so on.
Mary Beard: Gifford lectures, and Classics the nasty bits (TLS)
I have just finished 'whiteness' which has been a big topic in the museum world recently (if you haven't seen it, try this). Why do museums look so white? It's a good question. And who do we blame? The usual culprit is poor old Winckelmann, branded a Eurocentrist for foregrounding white sculpture. It's unfair I think: how could the poor guy not have been a Eurocentrist - he died in 1768 and so far as I know never moved outside Austria, Germany and Italy (France?), not sure how he is supposed to have had a world vision.
April Wolfe: "A Face in the Crowd: American Character" (Criterion)
To call A Face in the Crowd prescient wouldn't quite be accurate. That would suggest that the American phenomenon Schulberg's script and Kazan's film capture hadn't been with us from the beginning. This is a country where two-bit entertainers have frequently joined the political class, buoyed by name recognition and charisma alone, and it's perhaps the only developed nation in the world where this happens so often.
Andrew Pulver: "Stanley Kubrick: film's obsessive genius rendered more human" (The Guardian)
He was portrayed as a recluse, but a new picture is emerging of a family man who was simply passionate about his work.
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Presenting
Michael Egan
took the day off.
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
from Bruce
Anecdotes
• At the 1936 Olympics, Jesse Owens failed twice to qualify for the finals in the long jump. He should have qualified easily, but he was now in the position of not making the finals if he were to fault one more time. Fortunately, his German competitor, Lutz Long, helped him by advising him by start his jump about a foot before the fault line - that way, he would not fault and should easily qualify. The advice worked, and Mr. Owens made the finals, where he and Mr. Long competed for the gold medal, with Mr. Owens finally winning while Mr. Long won the silver medal. The two men became friends, and they stayed friends, although Mr. Long fought for the Germans in World War II. On a battlefield, Mr. Long wrote Mr. Owens, "I hope we can always remain best of friends despite the differences between our countries." Not long after, Mr. Long died in battle. After the war was over, Mr. Long's son, 22-year-old Peter, wrote Mr. Owens to ask him to be his best man at his wedding: "Even though my father can't be here to be my best man, I know who he would want in his place. He would want you to take his place. And I do, too." Mr. Owens flew to Germany, and was Peter's best man.
• Cindy Jones is a nurse who works with cancer patients. In 1996, one such patient was about to die. One of Cindy's colleagues asked the woman, "What is important to you?" What was important to the woman was being married to her boyfriend, but the two had kept postponing the date. The staff at the hospital got busy. Because the woman and her boyfriend had little money, a fund the hospital kept to help patients was used to buy the wedding license. The hospital chaplain performed the ceremony. The hospital's medical media department photographer took the wedding photos. A white negligee served as a wedding dress for the woman. Sheets were hung to make the atmosphere less like that of a hospital. The woman was a very happy bride, and she died approximately four hours after becoming a wife. Ms. Jones wrote, "For years I have been wearing a button on my lab coat: 'Oncology [Cancer] Nurses Say Never Postpone a Pleasure.' For me, it sums up a philosophy I have developed after nearly two decades in my field. I am constantly reminded to try to live each day as if it were my last and to not have any regrets about things I wished I had taken the time to enjoy."
• When a major earthquake struck Christchurch, New Zealand, in early 2011, Emma Howard, 23 years old, whose wedding was supposed to happen in three days, was trapped in a tiny cavity among the rubble of a collapsed building. She sent a text to her fiancée, Chris Greenslade, saying, "It's Emma here. I'm OK and I love you very much." He spent the next several hours digging her and other people out from the rubble, and he helped direct a rescue crew to where she was trapped under the rubble. He also kept sending her texts, such as this one: "I'm with your parents. I love you. There are lots of men trying to get you out." She said that after being rescued, "I said to people, 'When I was in there I was thinking, I'm meant to be married in three days.' And they said to me, 'You still are.'" They were right. The wedding took place on the day it was originally scheduled - with a few changes. The groomsmen wore white shirtsleeves because their suits were destroyed in the earthquake - along with the fancy wedding cake. Mr. Greenslade said, "But everything else has gone to plan. We are just so lucky."
• In the pre-Civil War South, slaves would have what were called broomstick weddings. On the ground, a broomstick was placed. Friends and family gathered in a circle around the broomstick. The preacher would ask the groom, "Do you take this woman to be your wife?" The man would answer, "Yes." The preacher then would say, "Well, jump the broom." He would jump over the broom. The preacher would then ask the bride, "Do you take this man to be your husband?" The woman would answer, "Yes." The preacher then would say, "Well, jump the broom." She would jump over the broom, and then the preacher would say, "I pronounce you man and wife." Just like today, a supper and dance usually followed the wedding.
• In the days of arranged marriages for Oriental women, a father and mother told their daughter that two men had offered to marry her. A rich, ugly old man in the East wanted to marry her, and a poor, handsome young man in the West wanted to marry her. The father and mother told their daughter to raise her right hand if she wanted to marry the rich, ugly old man in the East or to raise her left hand if she wanted to marry the poor, handsome young man in the West. To their surprise, their daughter raised both arms, then explained that she wanted to dine at the dinner table of the rich, ugly old man in the East, but she wanted to sleep in the bed of the poor, handsome young man in the West.
• Blues musician B.B. King spent a lot of time on the road, a fact that contributed to some failed marriages. Therefore, he was not as eager as some of the women he dated to get married. He once said, "It really hurts me when a lady says, 'We've been to dinner three times. What are your intentions?'" In one case, a woman gave him an ultimatum, saying that if he didn't marry her then she would marry someone else. He replied, "Go ahead. I'll bring my guitar and sing at your wedding."
• Comedian Lewis Black got married in Rockville, Maryland. After the ceremony, he saw two police officers with a shackled prisoner in between them. Mr. Black told his brother, "When God sends a message, He certainly makes it loud and clear." The marriage didn't last even a year.
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Reader Comment
Current Events
Predator dis of Baylor women athletes
There are some great reactions all the way down--dis the athletes, dis the WH chefs. Love "The WH will smell like Happy Meal farts for the next 100 years."
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
JD is on vacation.
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Marine layer again - quite nice.
Rare Recording
Albert Einstein
A one-of-a-kind recording offered at auction presents a rare and fascinating glimpse of physicist Albert Einstein.
Though Einstein was known around the world, he was notoriously publicity-shy, so there is little audio evidence of his life outside of the usual media spotlight. But in a casual conversation recorded more than 60 years ago, the scientist cracked jokes, discussed his love of music and delved into global politics.
Recorded in 1951 on long-playing vinyl discs at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton, New Jersey, the intriguing conversation between Einstein and his friends Jack and Frances Rosenberg has never been accessible by the public - until now.
On Saturday (May 4) at 12 p.m. ET, bidding opens online at Heritage Auctions for a reel-to-reel tape containing the 33-minute conversation between Einstein and his two friends. Einstein speaks in English that is heavily accented - "as expected" - and the serious topics that he tackles are interspersed with laughter and jokes, according to a description in the auction listing.
Bidding for the audio tape starts at $3,500, and the winner will also receive a CD containing the recording, according to the Heritage Auction website.
Albert Einstein
Clinches Disney-Regional Sports Networks Deal
Sinclair
Disney has finalized its deal to sell 21 Fox regional sports networks to Sinclair Broadcast Group in a transaction valued at $10.6 billion. Byron Allen, the entrepreneur behind Entertainment Studios, has teamed with Sinclair as an equity partner in the newly formed Diamond Holding Group.
The agreement covers outlets serving major markets around the country. The RSNs have local rights to 42 professional teams, including 14 Major League Baseball teams, NBA teams and 12 NHL teams. Last year, the 21 channels delivered $3.8 billion in revenue across 74 million subscribers.
The deal, which still requires regulatory approval, promises to vault Baltimore-based Sinclair to a new level of activity on the cable side. The company has been steadily building up its sports assets which at present include the Marquee Sports Network venture with the Chicago Cubs, the Tennis Channel, Stadium, Ring of Honor Wrestling and high school sports programming that airs on its 170-plus TV stations.
For Disney, the sale fulfills a commitment made last year to the Justice Department to divest the Fox RSNs in exchange for receiving approval of the $71.3 billion purchase of 21st Century Fox, which closed in March. The pricetag Sinclair is paying for 21 of Fox's 22 RSNs is believed to be less than the channels were valued in the larger Disney-21st Century Fox deal. But Disney had a 90-day deadline to divest the channels. It began the sale process last fall but the final list of bidders was short.
Sinclair's reputation for driving hard bargains with MVPDs on retransmission consent deals for its TV stations has made the company a pariah in the cable industry. ACA Connects, the trade organization for small cable operators, was quick to voice its opposition to the sale on Friday.
Sinclair
Expected To Testify
Ashton Kutcher
Ashton Kutcher is one of several witnesses expected to take the stand in a high-profile murder trial involving an alleged serial killer called the "Hollywood Ripper".
Michael Gargiulo, an air conditioning repairman charged with murdering a Chicago-area teenager and two California women - one of whom was the ex-girlfriend of Kutcher - would "watch, shadow, stalk and hunt down" his victims before fatally stabbing them for sexual pleasure, a Los Angeles prosecutor said during opening statements this week.
The trial began with a prosecutor outlining the California murders for jurors, calling the defendant "the boy next door killer" and his crimes "the methodical and systematic slaughter of women".
Mr Gargiulo, 43, has pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder and an attempted-murder charge stemming from attacks in the Los Angeles area between 2001 and 2008, including the death of Kutcher's former girlfriend, 22-year-old Ashley Ellerin.
He was arrested in 2008 after DNA evidence linked him to one of the killings and a non-fatal attack. He was separately charged with killing an 18-year-old woman whose father found her fatally stabbed on their family's doorstep, house key still in hand.
Ashton Kutcher
New King's Famous Ancestor
Thailand
Thailand's elaborate coronation ceremonies for King Maha Vajiralongkorn this weekend are steeped in history and a showcase for the kingdom's rich Buddhist culture for the world.
Yet for many in the West, the Thai monarchy is still often associated with another king - the character played by Yul Brynner in the 1956 Hollywood musical "The King and I".
That film is banned in Thailand because its depiction of King Mongkut - the current king's great-great grandfather - is deemed disrespectful and false.
In the movie, the king, played by Brynner, was portrayed as a moody, vain, ignorant and misogynistic monarch who softened up thanks to the influence of the children's plucky English governess.
In fact, King Mongkut, who reigned from 1851 to his death in 1868, is seen by many historians as a reformist for his time.
Thailand
U.N. Rights Experts Cite Concern
Julian Assange
United Nations human rights experts voiced concern on Friday at what they called the "disproportionate sentence" of 50 weeks in prison imposed on WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for skipping bail in Britain.
Assange is being held in the high-security Belmarsh prison "as if he were convicted for a serious criminal offence", the U.N. working group on arbitrary detention said in a statement, adding that this "appears to contravene principles of necessity and proportionality". It described the skipping bail charge as a relatively "minor violation".
The group, composed of five independent experts, issued an opinion in 2015 that Assange - holed up at the time at the Ecuadoran Embassy in London after skipping bail to avoid extradition to Sweden to face an allegation of rape - was being arbitrarily detained. Assange has denied the rape allegations.
Julian Assange
Joe Biden
Joe Biden's presidential campaign is already sunk - at least on Google.
Users are reporting that the former vice president's official 2020 campaign page is nowhere to be found on the first page of results for the search term "Joe Biden."
Even worse for the Democratic front-runner: A realistic-looking parody site featuring images of Biden touching women and children appears to be doing quite well on Google and other major search engines, particularly for the search "Joe Biden website."
An online tracker maintained by the progressive digital advertising firm ACRONYM shows the Biden campaign has spent more than $360,000 on Google platforms, racking up more spending on the site than all the other candidates in the crowded field except Sen. Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana.
While his official campaign page is absent, Google does prominently display an official Biden advertisement for Biden-related searches.
Joe Biden
Worrisome
Herpes
There's a lot more "sex" going on between the oral and genital herpes viruses than scientists previously thought, according to a new study.
The study, published April 23 in The Journal of Infectious Diseases, found that the two herpes simplex viruses - known as HSV-1 and HSV-2 - mix their genetic material together, or "recombine," more often than thought. (HSV-1 classically causes oral infections and HSV-2 causes genital infections.)
The researchers "found, basically, that there was considerably more recombination than had previously been appreciated," between the two viruses, said study co-author Dr. Alex Greninger, an assistant professor of laboratory medicine at the University of Washington (UW) School of Medicine.
What's more, although scientists knew that the two viruses had mixed in the distant past, the new study shows that this mixing continues to this day. "Herpes viruses are still having sex," Greninger told Live Science.
But the mixing appears to be a "one-way" exchange, with HSV-2 acquiring genes from HSV-1, and not the other way around, the authors said.
Herpes
Gear Stolen
Café Tacvba
Mexican rock band Café Tacvba had their concert gear stolen in a highway robbery that left two of their crew members "brutally beaten."
The band's equipment truck was en route to a concert in Cancun, Mexico when the robbery took place; according to NPR, the stretch of highway connecting Puebla and Veracruz, where the robbery took place, has been plagued by robberies and assaults.
The perpetrators stole the equipment truck, which contained Café Tacvba's instruments, consoles and other gear. Police later found the vehicle, its contents emptied, abandoned on the side of the highway.
A statement by the band on social media channels said that the crew members were also briefly kidnapped in the incident; the band didn't elaborate on their condition.
Café Tacvba
Beluga Whale Appears To 'Defect'
Norway
The mystery surrounding the beluga whale alleged to have come from a Russian military facility continues with the marine mammal refusing to leave Norwegian waters, leading to jokes the whale has "defected."
"The last days the whale has still been observed in the same area," marine biologist Jorgen Ree Wiig, an inspector for the Norwegian Directorate of Fisheries, said in a statement. "Hopefully it will swim away further north in the Arctic where it belongs and join a pod of white whales."
Wiig, who was alerted by local fishermen after they found the whale with a "strange" harness, also described the dramatic moment when the fishermen jumped into the water to remove the harness.
"The whale got wild and dived deep and pulled the rope attached to the boat -- and suddenly -- it was free!" Wiig said. "First we thought that the rope had been ripped apart, but then we saw the most enjoyable thing in the water: The whale was free from the harness. It was a cheerful moment to see the whale going his own way, free from the harness."
However, Wiig told ABC News it is "unlikely" the beluga, a young adult male who is yet to be named, was militarily trained.
Norway
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