Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Bruce Dalzell: Waltz For Kelee (YouTube)
A truly great instrumental.
Marc Dion: The Little Mug Comes Home (Creators Syndicate)
When I left the world of full-time newspaper employment to enter retirement, I left, as all workers do, with a box of things I'd taken from my desk. It was a fairly stereotypical load. There were books, pictures of my wife, pens, some small Christmas decorations I stored in a drawer between seasons. And a mug.
Mark Shields: Sherrod Brown Will Be Missed (Creators Syndicate)
Why should it be of any importance or interest that Sherrod Brown, the third-term U.S. senator from Ohio, announced this week that he will not run for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination? For one reason, unlike many recent would-be national leaders who belong to his party - a list that includes Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, John Kerry, John Edwards, Chuck Schumer, Harry Reid and Joe Lieberman, for starters - Brown had the political guts and the good judgment to vote against George W. Bush and Dick Cheney's immorally ignorant decision for the United States to invade and to occupy Iraq.
Lenore Skenazy: Making Childhood Legal (Creators Syndicate)
Do kids have the right to go outside and play, ride their bikes and goof around on their own, without adult supervision? Not if their parents could get arrested or investigated for neglect.
Froma Harrop: Taping Mouths at Harvard (Creators Syndicate)
The rap against Sullivan is that he joined the team of lawyers defending Harvey Weinstein, the Hollywood producer facing multiple charges of sexual harassment and worse. In the American judicial system, every defendant deserves legal representation. Ted Bundy and Timothy McVeigh had lawyers, none of whom approved of the client's gruesome crimes. The legal aid movement rests on the belief that poor people have a right to adequate legal representation, whether they are innocent or not. In a teaching moment, Sullivan tried to gently explain. "Lawyers are not an extension of their clients," he said. Representing a client "doesn't mean I'm supporting anything the client may have done."
Froma Harrop: Why Canadians Rule the Cannabis Business (Creators Syndicate)
President Trump routinely waves his fist at alleged unfair trade practices, including at the hands of our good neighbor Canada. But what about playing fields that are uneven because the U.S. government makes them so? Witness the cannabis industry. It's enjoying explosive growth worldwide, but Canadians are running away with the profits because Washington has shackled their American competitors.
Nadja Sayej: "Robert Crumb: 'I am no longer a slave to a raging libido'" (The Guardian)
The controversial artist talks about his latest exhibition, how his feelings on Trump have changed and why he has stopped drawing women.
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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
• Alexandra Danilova was asked about the difference between a very good ballet dancer (a soloist) and a ballerina (of course, not every woman ballet dancer is a ballerina - only the very best are). She replied, "Ballet is Giselle. Door of cottage open. Pretty young soloist comes out. You happy and say 'I hope she do well.' Another performance. Is also Giselle. Alicia Markova come out. She not danced yet. One step only, but you sigh and say, 'Ah! ballerina!' You do not ask, you know. She is star. She shine."
• When he defected from Romania to the United States, world-class gymnastics coach Bela Karolyi knew six languages; unfortunately, none of them was English. He says that knowing these six languages "means nothing in America. If you cannot explain yourself in English, you begin at the bottom." In fact, Mr. Karolyi learned English with the help of Sesame Street, because the characters tended to speak slowly and because letters appeared on the television screen.
• Léonide Massine found it difficult to learn English; however, he was happy when he learned that in England it is possible to get almost anything you want by using the word "please." By the way, Mr. Massine's name was originally "Miassin," but he changed it because Sergei Diaghilev felt that it was "too difficult" for audiences who spoke English.
• Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's novels such as Cancer Ward were unavailable in the Soviet Union, but they were smuggled out of the country, translated, and published abroad. This led to an underground joke: Q: Do Soviets read the novels of Solzhenitsyn? A: Yes, but only if they can read a language other than Russian.
• At a meeting of an actors union, Dame Sybil Thorndike spoke out in favor of amateurs, saying that "amateur" means "lover." Kenneth McClellan spoke out against amateurs, asking, "Who wants a lover without technique?"
• Emmy Destinn was an opera singer from Czechoslovakia. During World War I, she suffered horribly while being interned in Austria, and after that experience, she vowed that never again would she speak German and she immediately dropped German operas from her repertoire.
• The Spanish pianist and conductor José Iturbi did not know English when he first arrived in England. At a cafe he wanted tea, but he was not able to make himself understood. He solved the problem by sitting at a piano and playing "Tea for Two."
• Slang varies from country to country. In Great Britain, a fag is a cigarette, and a faggot is an item of food - you can go into a grocery store in Great Britain and buy Birdseye "Frozen Faggots."
• The term "steal one's thunder" comes from John Dennis (1657-1734), who invented a new way of producing thunder for the stage, but who was incensed when other theatrical managers stole his new method of producing thunder.
• Samuel Augustus Maverick was a businessman in San Antonio in the 1850s. Although he owned a ranch, he paid little attention to the raising of cattle, and his cattle were seldom branded. As a result, cowboys would say, "That's one of Maverick's" whenever they saw a stray without a brand. Soon, the cowboys began to call any unbranded cattle "mavericks."
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Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
Reader Comment
Current Events
He AUTOGRAPHED a Bible while in Alabama?! What sacrilegious idiot asked Predator to autograph a Bible?! And WHO has the gall and ego to autograph a Bible?! "Oh yeah, I totally wrote it. I used all my words; the best words I know ALL about sin and idolizing gold. Those Old Testament guys I created really knew how to throw depraved parties with my old buddy Kraft."
Linda >^..^<
We are all only temporarily able bodied.
Thanks, Linda!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
JD is on vacation.
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Around 5am, figured out a neighbor has added a defective rooster to their backyard.
Kept going "cock-a-dooooo, cock-a-dooooo", missing not only the final doo, but a dle, too.
I can deal with no final doo, but that missing dle is driving me crazy.
Cave Rescue
Thailand
The soccer team that spent 18 days trapped in a Thailand cave is talking with Netflix about a possible movie deal.
The 2018 incident captured the world's attention as rescuers worked to save the boys and their coach.
The Thai government's creative media committee has been working on bids on the team's behalf.
They are reportedly close to signing a deal that will tell the story of the 12 boys and their coach who were stuck in the cave for 18 days.
The team and their coach say they will donate 15 percent of all the money made on the deal to Thai Government Disaster Mitigation offices.
Thailand
Mystery Sculpture
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo da Vinci is long-thought to have made sculptures, but since his death in 1519, no three-dimensional work of art by him has ever been identified. But now, curators in Italy have unveiled what may be the only known sculpture by the artist, inventor and scientist.
The Virgin with the Laughing Child was part of an exhibition this week in Florence. The 20 inch-tall sculpture, made of red clay, depicts the Virgin Mary, with an enigmatic smile similar to that of Mona Lisa, looking down at a smiling baby Jesus on her lap. Curators say the sculpture was created around 1472, when da Vinci was a student of the Florentine artist Andrea del Verrocchio, reports The Guardian.
Scholars say "the voluminous, complicated draperies" flowing over the Madonna's legs provide more clues: they are similar to drawings that Leonardo made at the time "which were almost obsessive studies of abstract folds and shadowy recesses," The Guardian reports.
The realistic liveliness of the child's face also resembles Leonardo's drawings of young children, according to The Guardian. "Yet portraying a laughing Christ in the 15th century was not only radical, but practically blasphemous," reports the newspaper. "In a passage in Leonardo's notebooks, he remembers getting into trouble when younger for portraying the infant Christ. Could this be the work that got him in hot water?"
The sculpture has belonged to London's Victoria and Albert Museum since 1858, but for centuries it has been credited to another artist, the Italian sculptor Antonio Rossellino.
Leonardo da Vinci
App To Control Women's Travel
Saudi
The Saudi government app Absher is mostly a way for people to pay traffic fines and complete other administrative tasks electronically. But one feature isn't sitting well with civil-rights advocates: the ability for men to grant or deny a woman permission to travel.
Regardless of their age, women in Saudi Arabia must have the consent of a male relative to obtain a passport, travel or marry. In the past, a travel permit was a paper document issued by the Interior Ministry and signed by a male relative. The Absher app replaces the need for a paper document.
The app is merely implementing existing laws, and removing it would not change or remove the guardianship rules in place. Nonetheless, the feature has sparked calls for leading tech companies to block access through their app stores.
The app includes a setting where Saudi men can grant or deny their spouses, daughters and minor sons permission to travel abroad. Through an integrated system, immigration officials at the airport can see the status of a woman's travel permit by scanning her passport details.
At one time, Saudi men were also being notified by text messages when dependents exited and entered Saudi Arabia, though Absher officials quoted in local Saudi media say that those text messages were not sent through Absher and that this texting service was stopped in 2014. Nonetheless, some published reports say the texts are still available. The app itself doesn't appear to track women using the phone's location services.
Saudi
Fans Vandalize War Memorial
PewDiePie
The world's most popular YouTube channel has once again attracted controversy after fans of PewDiePie defaced a World War II memorial in New York.
The Brooklyn War Memorial in Cadman Plaza Park was tagged with the graffiti, "Subscribe to PewDiePie", referencing a movement dedicated to preventing the YouTube channel from being dethroned by the Indian channel T-Series.
PewDiePie, whose real name is Felix Kjellberg, has been the most popular channel on YouTube since 2013, but faces significant competition from T-Series.
The Indian record label was expected to dethrone him in October, with a data analytics firm originally predicting the takeover would take place in October.
The title of the world's most popular YouTube channel finally changed hands last month when T-Series took over - but only for eight minutes.
PewDiePie
Selling Access
Spa Founder
Li Yang, the 45-year-old founder of the "happy endings" massage parlor frequented by New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, has not only been cozying up to President Donald Trump for selfies at his Mar-a-Lago property, she has been selling access to the president and his family to her Chinese clients, Mother Jones reported.
According to Yang's GY US Investments website, which was taken down the same day a Miami Herald story about her selfies with Trump broke, Yang promised clients "the opportunity to interact with the president, the [American] Minister of Commerce and other political figures." The site also claimed Yang could arrange "taking photos with the President" and could orchestrate a "White House and Capitol Hill Dinner." Yang's website also claimed her company "arranged a number of guests to attend the 2019 New Year's Eve dinner," adding, "all the guests took photos with" Trump family members. President Trump himself ended up cancelling his New Year's trip to Mar-a-Lago because of the shutdown, otherwise he likely would have been there-and could have potentially taken photos with Yang clients-as well.
On the website, Yang touted herself as a member of Trump's "Presidential Fundraising Committee" and said she was CEO of GY US Investments. According to the Herald, she and her family gave $42,000 to one of Trump's political action committees in addition to $16,000 in donations directly to his campaign.
Featured prominently on the website were photos of Donald Trump, Eric Trump, Donald Trump Jr., and Trump's sister, Elizabeth Trump Grau, posing with Yang and her alleged clients. As Mother Jones wrote: "The overall message conveyed by the GY US Investments website seems clear: hire Yang's company and she can get you close to Trump and his government-at Mar-a-Lago and in Washington."
Spa Founder
Finds Letter
DOJ
After it claimed no such document existed, the Justice Department just unearthed a letter Matt Whitaker delivered to the Utah U.S. attorney directing a review of how the department handled the Clinton Foundation and the Uranium One issues.
Then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions wrote the letter on Nov. 22, 2017 for Utah U.S. Attorney John Huber. Matt Whitaker, who was Sessions' chief of staff at the time, emailed the letter to Huber that day, writing, "As we discussed." He also sent Huber a copy of a letter the Justice Department's Congressional affairs chief sent to the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee on Nov. 13 of that year.
The existence of a letter documenting Sessions' directive that the DOJ revisit probes of Trump's top political foe is a surprise because a department lawyer said in court last year that senior officials insisted it didn't exist. The liberal nonprofit American Oversight obtained the letter through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request they filed on Nov. 22, 2017--the same day Whitaker emailed Sessions' letter to Huber.
The request asked for documentation of the directions Sessions gave Huber about the review of the Clinton investigations. After DOJ failed to produce any written directions, American Oversight sued. And on Nov. 16, 2018, Senior Counsel in the Office of Information Policy Vanessa Brinkmann, who handles FOIA Requests, said a lawyer in Sessions' office told her no such letter existed. That lawyer spoke with Huber and Whitaker, she said in a declaration filed in federal court, and then told her that "when the Attorney General directed Mr. Huber to evaluate these matters, no written guidance or directives were issued to Mr. Huber in connection with this directive, either by the Attorney General, or by other senior leadership office staff."
That wasn't correct. On Wednesday of this week, a DOJ lawyer told American Oversight that they had found the document that kicked off Huber's work.
DOJ
Secretive Military Base
Diego Garcia
The secretive Diego Garcia military base may be 1,000 miles from the nearest continent, but it has all the trappings of a modern American town.
But while cars here drive on the right side of the road, this is not American soil: It is, in fact, a remote remnant of the British Empire.
That is because in 1965, in the middle of the Cold War, the United States signed a controversial, secret agreement with the British government to lease one of the 60 or so Indian Ocean atolls that make up the Chagos Islands to construct a military base.
That deal was secret because the UK was in the process of decolonizing Mauritius, of which the Chagos archipelago was a dependency.
The Chagos Islands never got its independence day. Instead, it was cleaved from Mauritius and renamed the British Indian Ocean Territory, a move that the United Nations' highest court in 2019 ruled was illegal under international law.
Diego Garcia
Green Icebergs
Antarctica
Just in time for Saint Patrick's Day, scientists think they might know why some Antarctic icebergs are green.
The reason could be iron oxide dust ground down by glaciers on the Antarctic mainland. If the theory holds, it means that the green 'bergs are more than just a quirk of the Southern Ocean. In fact, they might be crucial to the movement of ocean nutrients.
"It's like taking a package to the post office," study leader Stephen Warren, a glaciologist at the University of Washington, said in a statement. "The iceberg can deliver this iron out into the ocean far away, and then melt and deliver it to the phytoplankton that can use it as a nutrient."
Warren has been on the case of the green icebergs for more than 30 years. He first took samples from one of these green hunks of ice in 1988, near the Amery Ice Shelf of East Antarctica.
"When we climbed up on that iceberg, the most amazing thing was actually not the color but rather the clarity," Warren said. "This ice had no bubbles. It was obvious that it was not ordinary glacier ice."
Antarctica
Relatives Of Spiders, Scorpions
Horseshoe Crabs
Blue-blooded and armored with 10 spindly legs, horseshoe crabs have perhaps always seemed a bit out of place.
First thought to be closely related to crabs, lobsters and other crustaceans, in 1881 evolutionary biologist E. Ray Lankester placed them solidly in a group more similar to spiders and scorpions. Horseshoe crabs have since been thought to be ancestors of the arachnids, but molecular sequence data have always been sparse enough to cast doubt.
University of Wisconsin-Madison evolutionary biologists Jesús Ballesteros and Prashant Sharma hope, then, that their recent study published in the journal Systematic Biology helps firmly plant ancient horseshoe crabs within the arachnid family tree.
"By showing that horseshoe crabs are part of the arachnid radiation, instead of a lineage closely related to but independent of arachnids, all previous hypotheses on the evolution of arachnids need to be revised," says Ballesteros, a postdoctoral researcher in Sharma's lab. "It's a major shift in our understanding of arthropod evolution."
Arthropods are often considered the most successful animals on the planet since they occupy land, water and sky and include more than a million species. This grouping includes insects, crustaceans and arachnids.
Horseshoe Crabs
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