from Bruce
Anecdotes
Clothing
• In 1980, ice dancers Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean won the World Championships for their first time. As a reward for their hard work and success, the Queen of England awarded them both M.B.E.s (short for “Member of the Order of the British Empire”). This, of course, is a major honor for anyone, and Ms. Torvill had to invest in an expensive outfit, including an expensive hat, for the ceremony. Mr. Dean was luckier. He was able to rent his fancy suit and top hat. Actually, he was luckier even than that—when the rental place discovered who Mr. Dean was and why he was renting the fancy suit and top hat, they let him borrow them for free. Of course, hard work got them the M.B.E.s, and they continued to work hard after getting them. The same day they got the M.B.E.s, they were on the ice rink practicing at 11 p.m. The hard work continued to pay off. In 1984, they won gold at the Olympics, earning a string of perfect 6.0s for artistic merit for their dance to Bolero. (When a British reporter asked Mr. Dean later how the performance had gone, he modestly replied, “All right.”)
• Pat Tillman died fighting in Afghanistan. He was an original who gave up a lucrative career in the NFL to become a U.S. soldier. His funeral was unusual; for example, his youngest brother, Rich, told the mourners, “Pat isn’t with God. He’s f**king dead. He wasn’t religious. So thank you for your thoughts, but he’s f**king dead.” How much of an original was the late Mr. Tillman? He was godfather to the son of Alex Garwood, his friend and brother-in-law, who told this story: Since the son had two godfathers and no godmothers, at one ceremony Mr. Tillman came dressed in women’s clothing just to provide balance.
• During the 1992 Olympic Games, Hassiba Boulmerka of Jordan won the gold medal in the 1,500-meter race. As an athlete, Ms. Boulmerka received death threats because fundamentalist Muslims felt that she should keep her body covered in public instead of running in shorts and a sleeveless top. Ms. Boulmerka, who is herself Muslim, answered her critics by saying that she is an athlete and she dresses the way middle-distance runners must dress for competitions.
• During the 1981 Stanley Cup play-offs, Richard Sevigny, the goalie for the Montreal Canadiens, predicted that Montreal star Guy Lafleur would put Edmonton Oilers star Wayne Gretzky “in his back pocket.” In game one of the play-offs, Mr. Gretzky made five assists as the Oilers defeated the Canadiens, 6-3. Mr. Gretzky then skated over to Mr. Sevigny and patted the place where his back pocket would be if hockey uniforms had back pockets.
• Players in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League were supposed to be feminine and wear skirts or dresses when getting off the bus and walking into a hotel. Some veterans found a way to get around the rule. Left fielder Jo Lenard used to wear a raincoat, underneath which she had rolled up the legs of her slacks.
• Many tall women are uncomfortable with their height—but not all. Former WNBA star Rebecca Lobo is over six feet tall, yet she wears high heels. She explains, “I figure six-foot-four, six-foot-six—what does it matter? I might as well have style.”
• Bud Collins, a TV commentator on tennis, is known for his lack of fashion sense. Once, he asked Chris Evert a silly question after a loss at Wimbledon. She replied, “Nice pants, Bud,” then walked away.
• The great jockey Tod Sloan wore shoes that were size one and a half—he used to offer a pair to any woman who was able to wear them.
Coaches
• Many coaches talk about mental toughness. Magnar Solberg, a Norwegian athlete competing in the biathlon, an event that combines cross-country skiing and shooting, had it. Martin Stokken, Mr. Solberg’s coach, figured out a way to make Mr. Solberg mentally tough for those times when he needed to aim at and hit a target although his arms were exhausted from skiing cross-country. During the summer, Mr. Stokken set up a target 50 feet from an anthill. Mr. Solberg then lay down on top of the anthill and shot at the target as the ants swarmed over him. He said later, “The ants would crawl up my legs, all over my face, everywhere. It was awful. I did not believe it at the time, but my ability to concentrate under those hot, painful conditions made the actual competition easy for me in the cold.” At the 1968 and the 1972 Olympic Games, Mr. Solberg was the only biathlete to have perfect “no miss” shooting scores. He also walked away from the Olympic Games with gold medals in his event.
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© Copyright Bruce D. Bruce; All Rights Reserved
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Presenting
Michael Egan
U.S.A. said:
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION
BANDCAMP MUSIC
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION OF BANDCAMP MUSIC
Music: "They Don’t Know"
Album: YOUR FACE IS WEIRD
Artist: Geoff Palmer & Lucy Ellis
Record Company: Rum Bar Records
Record Company Location: Boston, Massachusetts
Info:
“Lucy Ellis (from Lucy & The Rats) and Geoff Palmer (The Connection, The Guts, The Queers … and a big solo career) who work together obviously it makes me salivate very hard!” - Voix de Garage Grenoble
“Seriously: no one will ever do ‘In Spite of Ourselves’ better than John Prine and Iris DeMent. But Palmer and Ellis have come darn close, and in the process they’ve turned countless individuals into John Prine fans. And while Kirsty MacColl’s ‘They Don’t Know’ is one of the most perfect pop songs ever written, Palmer and Ellis just might have made my second-favorite version ever (and that’s no slight to The Speedways or Tracey Ullman!). How do you top Sam Cooke’s ‘Having a Party’? Well, you don’t. But if you’re Geoff Palmer and Lucy Ellis, you work up a super fun version that essentially serves as a theme song for the entire album.” - Faster And Louder
“I’ve been playing this song since the moment the album was released. Being one of my favorite songs, this iconic Kirsty McColl classic has been covered by many over the years, when I saw that Geoff and Lucy included this one, I knew it was going to be great. I was not wrong. This song helped to propel the entire release to the top of my charts recently and remains in the company of great kindred spirits each show and each week!” – “Boris”Boden (aka The Secret Weapon on Woody Radio)
Lucy Ellis is a member of Lucy and the Rats.
Price: $10 (USD) for eight-track album; tracks cannot be purchased separately
Links:
YOUR FACE IS WEIRD
Rum Bar Records
Geoff Palmer & Lucy Ellis - Topic
Other Links:
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 Apple iBookstore
David Bruce has over 140 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
Reader Suggestion
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Michael Egan
Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
Reader Comment
Current Events
Linda >^..^<
We are all only temporarily able bodied.
Thanks, Linda!
that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
CA dems need to understand that just a single commercial, even with Elizabeth Warren, is a pretty fucking lame rebuttal to the recall effort.
A recall election seeking to remove California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) will take place on September 14, 2021. The recall election will present voters with two questions. The first will ask whether Newsom should be recalled from the office of governor. The second will ask who should succeed Newsom if he is recalled. A majority vote is required on the first question for the governor to be recalled. The candidate with the most votes on the second question would win the election, no majority required.
ballotpedia
So, if Gavin doesn't get 51%, the top vote-getter of the 46 repubican scum candidates, none of whom could win a legitimate election, becomes the new governor, percentages be damned.
Seriously, WTF?
We are being inundated with Larry Elder ads in the greater LA market. I see good old Liz maybe twice a night.
Bet I'm not going to like governor Elder much.
Confirms New Art
Banksy
Banksy has confirmed he is behind the 10 pieces of art that have appeared in towns along the east coast of England.
There has been much speculation surrounding the murals which began appearing last week in Great Yarmouth, Gorleston and Crome, Norfolk, and Lowestoft and Oulton Broad in Suffolk.
The first of the murals featured a couple appearing to dance on a bus shelter accompanied by a man playing the accordion, and appeared in Great Yarmouth on Friday.
It was followed by an arcade claw-machine hanging over a bench in Gorleston, and a child holding a crowbar against a wall in Lowestoft.
Banksy claimed responsibility for the artwork he titled A Great British Spraycation on his Instagram page, with a video showing a behind-the-scenes look at their creation.
Banksy
Succession Got Messy
'Jeopardy!'
When Ken Jennings arrived at the “Jeopardy!” studios in November for the first day of his audition to become the new host of the long-running quiz show, he found a gift waiting for him: a pair of Alex Trebek’s cuff links, along with a handwritten note from his widow, Jean.
For some members of the “Jeopardy!” crew, the cuff links validated their assumption that Jennings, a genial Utahan who rose to fame in 2004 after winning a record 74 consecutive games, had been Trebek’s preferred successor. (“Jeopardy!” producers had arranged for a phone call between Jennings and Trebek two days before he died.) But “Jeopardy!,” while a beloved cultural icon, is also a lucrative asset of Sony Pictures Entertainment, and in the television industry, sentiment only goes so far.
“Jeopardy!,” whose first iteration began in 1964, is one of TV’s last bastions of comfort food, a place where politics don’t matter and the real world is easily digested in just-the-facts bites. Then its succession drama got messy. After a cattle call of guest hosts, including Anderson Cooper, Robin Roberts, Aaron Rodgers, LeVar Burton and even Dr. Mehmet Oz, the announcement of the winner sent fans into a tailspin. The new weekday host would be Mike Richards, the show’s obscure executive producer and the man initially charged with finding Trebek’s replacement.
Richards, it seemed, did not have to look very far.
Critics accused Richards of rigging the contest à la Dick Cheney, who led the vice-presidential search for George W. Bush. Old lawsuits surfaced from Richards’ previous job, at “The Price Is Right,” involving his treatment of female staff members. (He denies wrongdoing.) After Sony said the “Big Bang Theory” actress Mayim Bialik would host the show’s prime-time spinoffs, her past skepticism about vaccines recirculated. (Her team said “she is not at all an anti-vaxxer.”)
'Jeopardy!'
Henning, Tennessee
Alex Haley
Find the good and praise it.
It’s a phrase the late Alex Haley, author of the 1976 novel “Roots: The Saga of an American Family,” often said during his life, from his days residing in the small West Tennessee town of Henning through his world travels as a journalist and writer. His seminal book about the horrors and injustices of slavery include messages of perseverance, courage and strength.
Now, on the occasion of his 100th birthday, the author’s bridge-building legacy is being invoked once again as a kind of antidote to an especially contentious period of American life. A ribbon-cutting at the renovated Alex Haley Museum and Interpretive Center took place Friday, and a community celebration featuring music, food and a fashion show is scheduled Saturday.
Haley is most well known for “Roots,” which earned him a Pulitzer Prize and was turned into a TV miniseries watched by a record-setting 130 million people when it was released in 1977. Haley also wrote “The Autobiography of Malcolm X,” based on interviews with the civil rights leader.
The Henning museum and the home where Haley lived with his grandparents from 1921 to 1929 are state historic sites.
Alex Haley
Art Project
Huge Electric Guitar
Laid out across the large floor space inside of the Area 59 workshop — and taking up a lot of it — was about 22 feet of giant guitar.
Designed and mapped out in paper, its blueprint stretches across the middle of the work space floor, right beside a black steel plate cut into the body of a warlock-styled electric guitar. The guitar’s jagged edges shoot out of each of its corners, similar to what one might expect Metallica to riff on, but exponentially larger.
In white markings on the black metal reads “Wilson,” as if anybody else could have conjured up a potential community art installment like that, the Gillette News Record reports.
It may just be in its early stages now, but when all is said and done, Wilson Restrepo envisions the giant guitar statue he is building to be a mainstay in Gillette. He and his son, Pedro Piedrahita, began building the mammoth electric axe earlier this summer and plan to submit it for consideration in next summer’s Avenues of Art selections, chosen by the Mayor’s Art Council.
Although the guitar will not be playable, he wants to have every dial shaped and pickup polished to the point that it looks like the real deal.
Huge Electric Guitar
Vaccine Event
Rupert
An analysis of four months worth of emails from Ron DeSantis' (R) office reveals the Florida governor's myriad appearances on Fox News to be "carefully crafted" ahead of time — so much so, the network even helped the 2024 standout stage a vaccination news event back in January, the Tampa Bay Times reports.
DeSantis' office, attempting to paint a more flattering picture of Florida's confusing vaccine rollout and overshadow images of desperate seniors in long lines, pitched an appearance from the governor to Fox & Friends. The top-rated show's producers were thrilled, and a "plan came together in a flurry of emails and phone calls" over the next several days, per Tampa Bay.
The governor's team "provided a senior, a location, and the talking points," while Fox brought "the cameras and its audience." No other media was allowed in. The segment, which featured a 100-year-old veteran receiving his first shot while DeSantis cracked jokes and "boasted that Florida was leading the country in vaccinating older residents," aired on Jan. 22.
The event is just one instance of there being "few surprises" when DeSantis appears on Fox, writes Tampa Bay. Topics, talking points, and sometimes even graphics are reportedly shared in advance.
The network likens such instances to typical pre-interviews with on-air guests, but A.J. Bauer, a University of Alabama communications professor who has studied Fox for years, believes the governor and the network are "blurring the lines" that divide networks and contributors.
Rupert
Alarm All Around
Salmon
This summer, fishers in the world’s largest wild salmon habitat pulled a record-breaking 65 million sockeye salmon from Alaska’s Bristol Bay, beating the 2018 record by more than 3 million fish.
But on the Yukon River, about 500 miles to the north, salmon were alarmingly absent. This summer’s chum run was the lowest on record, with only 153,000 fish counted in the river at the Pilot Station sonar — a stark contrast to the 1.7 million chum running in year’s past. The king salmon runs were also critically low this summer — the third lowest on record. The Yukon’s fall run is also shaping up to be sparse.
The disparity between the fisheries is concerning — a possible bellwether for the chaotic consequences of climate change; competition between wild and hatchery fish; and commercial fishing bycatch.
“This is something we’ve never seen before,” said Sabrina Garcia, a research biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. “I think that we’re starting to see changes due to climate change, and I think that we’re going to continue to see more changes, but we need more years of data.”
The low runs have had ripple effects for communities along the Yukon River and its tributaries — the Andreafski, Innoko, Anvik, Porcupine, Tanana and Koyukuk rivers — resulting in a devastating blow to the people relying on salmon as a food staple, as feed for sled dogs and as an integral and enriching cultural tradition spanning millenniums.
Salmon
Changes With Age
Metabolism
We know that metabolism – the rate that we burn calories to keep our bodies running – changes as we age, but little is really known about the timeline of these changes.
The researchers were able to pull in a huge amount of data from 6,421 people across 29 countries and with an age range of 8 days old to 95 years old. By using isotopes placed in drinking water and then tracked through urine, researchers worked out a daily energy expenditure figure for each participant.
Contrary to popular belief, pound-for-pound our metabolic rate peaks when we're infants. So, when we're teenagers, we're only burning calories at a slighter faster rate than when we're middle-aged.
The thickening waistlines associated with middle age might not all be down to a slow metabolic rate, in other words.
"There are lots of physiological changes that come with growing up and getting older," says evolutionary anthropologist Herman Pontzer, from Duke University. "Think puberty, menopause, other phases of life. What's weird is that the timing of our 'metabolic life stages' doesn't seem to match those typical milestones."
Metabolism
Keep Facing East
Sunflowers
East-facing sunflowers are happier, healthier, and more productive than those that face other directions – and it's all down to the warmth of the morning Sun.
That's the conclusion drawn by a new study that sought to find why the cheerful yellow blooms tend to mature facing east, in spite of a more flexible youth in which their orientation changes to face the moving Sun.
The greater warmth and light from the rising Sun attracts more bees in the morning, which results in better growth, earlier pollen production, more plentiful seeds, and higher reproductive success.
"It's quite striking that they face east," said plant biologist Stacey Harmer of the University of California Davis. "It's better for them to face east, as they produce more offspring."
Exactly why sunflowers did this remained a mystery to researchers in 2016, so another team led by UC Davis biologist Nicky Creux designed an experiment to find out.
Sunflowers
Just Like Humans
Greetings
Chimps and bonobos signal "hello" and "goodbye" to one another when entering and exiting social encounters, a new study finds.
In other words, these apes, which share about 99% of humans' DNA, politely greet and bid adieu to each other, just like humans do. Until now, this behavior hasn't been documented outside of the human species, the researchers said.
"Our findings show that two species of great apes habitually go through the same process and stages as humans when establishing, executing and terminating joint actions" of hi and bye, the researchers wrote in the study, published online Aug. 11 in the journal iScience.
Granted, the apes didn't just give their equivalent of a vocal "What's up?" during social visits. Rather, they had a slew of nonverbal cues. This happens with humans, too. For instance, when people approach to interact, they often orient their bodies toward each other, look at each other and display the intention to touch, hug or kiss before they start talking, the researchers wrote in the study. When leaving an interaction, people often turn their bodies away from each other.
To determine whether chimpanzees and bonobos practice these behaviors, the researchers analyzed 1,242 interactions of apes at zoos, and they discovered that these primates often communicate with one another — often with gestures that include gazing at and touching each other, holding hands or butting heads — before and after encounters such as grooming or play. Of the two species, however, the bonobos were definitely the more polite ones, greeting each other more often than the chimps did, the researchers found.
Greetings
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