Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Andrew Tobias: A Baptist Minister and a Supreme Court Justice Walk Into a Bar …
If you favor affordable health care that covers pre-existing conditions, affordable college, overtime pay, clean air and water, equal rights - things like that … if you thought Obama was a pretty good President and you "believe in" science and worry about climate change . . . you're a Democrat. Vote D. If you think the really big problem we face as a nation are desperately poor Hondurans walking thousands of miles to turn themselves in at the border in hopes of asylum to pick your tomatoes and clean your motel toilets … and you think it's okay for Trump's party to control all three branches of government with no checks and balances … vote R. You're a Republican.
Paul Waldman: If Republicans keep their hold on Congress, things will get worse (Washington Post)
… that's not to say there aren't plenty of things they'll try to do if they can hold on to Congress. Let's go over some of them: Health care: Despite their almost comically dishonest insistence that they have suddenly discovered a passion for protecting people with preexisting conditions, Republicans will continue their assault on the Affordable Care Act, including, yes, its protections for people with preexisting conditions. If the lawsuit filed by a group of Republican-controlled states is successful, one supported by the Trump administration and pretty much every Republican everywhere, the ACA will be nullified.
Jonathan Chait: Trump: Our Plan Covers Preexisting Conditions. It Does the Exact Opposite. (NY Mag)
At her press conference Monday, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders reassured the public about the issue that has become the Republicans' premier campaign liability. "The president's health-care plan that he's laid out," she said, "covers preexisting conditions." There are several lies embedded in this statement, beginning with the premise that Trump has a plan at all.
Helaine Olen: Trump's visit to Pittsburgh will make things worse (Washington Post)
The Pittsburgh Jewish community is itself divided about a Trump visit. The rabbi of Tree of Life, told CNN Monday morning, " The President of the United States is always welcome ." Others - both members of the synagogue and in the greater community - beg to differ. A former president of the temple called Trump a "purveyor of hate speech," and said "I do not welcome this president to my city." The local chapter of the progressive organization Bend the Arc wrote a letter begging him to stay away, saying he was not welcome until he fully denounced white nationalism and stopped demeaning minorities.
Garrison Keillor: The old man is learning to dance
I went to a fundraiser for my daughter's school Saturday and wandered out in search of relief and found myself trapped on the dance floor among demented teens writhing and jerking to the throb of a DJ's explosive sound unit and there was my girl, in a circle of girls holding hands, bouncing around in a tribal ceremony unknown to me, an old man from the Era of Dance Partners. One more reminder, as if I needed it, that soon I must take the Long Walk out onto the ice pack and not return.
W. Scott Poole: How Horror Changed After WWI (Lithub.Com)
On The Abyss Opened Up By The Great War.
Jonathan Jones: A portrait created by AI just sold for $432,000. But is it really art? (The Guardian)
An image of Edmond de Belamy, created by a computer, has just been sold at Christie's. But no algorithm can capture our complex human consciousness.
Jonathan Jones: Edward Burne-Jones review - art that shows how boring beauty can be (The Guardian)
Halfway through Tate Britain's loving homage to the Victorian "visionary" Edward Burne-Jones I was startled to see a painting I gave a damn about. It's a portrait of William Graham, colonial businessman, Liberal MP and art collector. His emaciated, sick-looking face stares straight at you from a small dark canvas. Two mad sweeps of white hair sprout from either side of his balding crown. His eyes are gelid and numbed. He looks utterly tortured.
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Presenting
Michael Egan
said:
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
from Bruce
Anecdotes
• While the members of Monty Python were filming their movie The Life of Brian, Ian Johnson made a documentary of the process, during which he asked the various Pythons to comment on each other. They got together in a group to watch the documentary, in which they had been open about each other, including criticisms of each other, but after seeing the documentary, according to Python member Graham Chapman, there was a moment in which they all looked at each other as if to say, "Yes, I know you. I know your good points, your bad points, but, the hell with all that anyway, because - I like you."
• Edythe Eyde watched some new neighbors move in - two men, no women. Her suspicions aroused, she went over and said, "Hi, welcome. I'm your neighbor across the street. I see you have a couple of cats." She played with the cats, then said, "You're gay, aren't you?" The two men were stunned, but she put them at ease by saying, "Well, so am I! Hi, neighbor!" They became good friends and traded jobs as needed. When they went away on business trips, she took care of their cats, and when she needed a difficult-to-replace light bulb changed, they did it for her.
• During a church lesson on friendship, a woman said, "This is a good lesson. Friends. I'm glad I've got so many." Jerry Clower asked her how many friends she had, and she replied, "I reckon I've got a thousand." Mr. Clower then asked her how many of her friends she would wake up at 2 a.m. if she needed help, and she said, "Oh, I don't know anybody I'd do that to." Hearing this, Mr. Clower said, "Lady, you ain't got a friend in the world. Not a single friend to your name."
• Dorothy Parker and Elsa Maxwell once lunched with a pretentious man who was determined to put Ms. Maxwell down. The man said that he was a friend of the painter Augustus John, then he said to Ms. Maxwell, "Of course, I don't suppose you know whom I'm talking about." Ms. Parker replied, "Oh yes, she does. But they're such great friends she calls him Augustus Jack."
• Often, people want to make friends with celebrities. Before starring in his sitcom, stand-up comedian Jerry Seinfeld was at a car wash when a man who had seen his act came up to him and asked, "Could we be friends?" Mr. Seinfeld replied, "Well, that's really the nicest thing you can ever ask someone, but I'm a little busy."
• Fanny Brice was very proud of her first contract to work for Flo Ziegfeld. In fact, he had to give her a new contract after she wore out the first one by taking it out and showing it constantly to her friends.
• Lesbian comedian Judy Carter says that a good way to come out to your friends is to ask, "Are you friends with any gay people?" If they say that they aren't, reply, "Well, you are now."
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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
CHRISTIANS ARE GOOFY.
EVIL DESCENDS UPON AMERICA.
POTUS PRACTICES DIVING INTO THE TOILET!
"AFTER ALL, FASCISM IS BIG BUSINESS."
"NO ONE IS ABOVE SUSPICION."
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Fewer kids than last year, but a remarkably polite bunch.
Netflix
Barack and Michelle Obama
Barack and Michelle Obama could be about to adapt a book about the Trump administration's "willful ignorance" for Netflix.
The couple has acquired the rights to Michael Lewis's The Fifth Risk, which was released earlier this month and chronicles the White House chaos that followed the 2016 presidential election, according to Deadline.
It was revealed in May this year that the former president and first lady had signed a multi-year production deal with the streaming platform. The financial details of the agreement haven't been disclosed, but the arrangement came after the couple signed a joint book deal reported to be worth more than $65m with Penguin Random House.
The Obamas are understood to be considering projects at the moment, Deadline noted, and no official announcement regarding a specific venture has been made yet.
The Fifth Risk asks the question: "What are the consequences if the people given control over our government have no idea how it works?" and explores the chaotic developments that have affected the Agriculture, Commerce, and Energy departments since the Trump administration took over.
Barack and Michelle Obama
New 'Ohio' Video
Neil Young, Daryl Hannah
Less than a week before the pivotal midterm elections, Neil Young and his wife Daryl Hannah created a new video for his 1970 CSNY classic "Ohio" to help bring about "common sense gun control laws." The clip mixes a recent solo electric rendition of the protest tunes with imagery from the Kent State massacre and more recent school shootings. It ends with a group of young people chanting "no more guns."
"With no real laws protecting us from guns, and with politicians supporting the NRA because the NRA supports them, we are not well represented," Young wrote on his official website. "Today's students are brave, demanding change in violent times. We stand with them. They are us. We are them. This has been going on for too long. My wife Daryl and I put this video together for you to reflect on. Support the students. Support our children. They want protection. No more guns."
Neil Young wrote "Ohio" days after the Kent State massacre of 1970 that left four students dead. "It was a pivotal moment in our history," Young wrote on his website. "It was a pivotal moment for me."
Over the past few months, Young has played a series of solo concerts at theaters all over America. The setlist changed drastically each night, but midway through every show he picked up an electric guitar and delivered a passionate rendition of "Ohio." "We were overcome with grief and sadness," Young said one night. "I was realizing how it's all changed."
Neil Young, Daryl Hannah
Through 2022
Alex Trebek
Jeopardy! went on hiatus earlier this year as longtime host Alex Trebek recovered from brain surgery, raising speculation as to whether or not the 77-year old would return to the gig he's hosted since 1984. Trebek himself stoked the fire when he contemplated his retirement in the media.
Well, good news: Sony Pictures Television has renewed his contract through 2022, and the host is along for the ride.
Sony's also renewed the contacts of its other iconic hosts, Wheel Of Fortune's Pat Sajak and Vanna White.
Alex Trebek
Ending After 18 Years
LA Film Festival
The L.A. Film Festival will end after 18 years and will be replaced by "year-round events aimed at building community and broadening its support of visual storytellers," Film Independent announced Wednesday.
"We took a hard look at the healthy growth of Film Independent's year-round programs and events over the past six years: the Spirit Awards, our film series curated by Elvis Mitchell, membership, labs, workshops, filmmaker grants and international programs," said Mary Sweeney, chair of the Film Independent board of directors. "In the end, we concluded that the organization should explore a more nimble, sustainable form of exhibiting and celebrating independent film artists year round."
Josh Welsh, president of Film Independent, added, "While we are very proud of what we've accomplished with the LA Film Festival over the past 18 years, the truth is that it has struggled to thrive, and the time has come for us to try something new. We are all deeply grateful to Jennifer Cochis for her vision, passion, and creativity and we're enormously proud of the Festival that she oversaw these past two years. We remain committed to serving filmmakers and film audiences across Los Angeles."
Three full-time staff positions will also be eliminated. Film Independent will continue with its current slate of programs and events including The Film Independent Spirit Awards, Global Media Makers and Project Involve.
LA Film Festival
'Taking Legal Action'
The Satanic Temple
A Satanic group has announced that it is taking legal action against Netflix's The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina over alleged copyright infringement.
The Satanic Temple, a religious and political organisation based in Salem, Massachusetts, has accused the show of ripping off the design of its statue of the deity Baphomet. In Netflix's reboot of the Archie Comics series, Sabrina Spellman (Kiernan Shipka) attends the Academy of Unseen Arts, a school for witches where Satan - who is most often referred to in the show as "the Dark Lord" - is worshipped.
Lucien Greaves, a co-founder of the Satanic Temple who acts as the group's spokesperson, used Twitter to criticise the design of the statue, which appears in multiple scenes of Sabrina. He accused the show of "appropriating" the group's original Baphomet monument.
"Yes, we are taking legal action regarding #TheChillingAdventuresofSabrina appropriating our copyrighted monument design to promote their asinine Satanic Panic fiction," Greaves tweeted on Sunday.
"We are claiming copyright infringement for their use of our unique Baphomet monument design in their show as a central icon for a cannibalistic cult," he wrote. "We are not laying claim to Baphomet itself, but rather our original interpretation of Baphomet that has become a central icon to our organisation, much like a corporate logo."
The Satanic Temple
Five Countries
Wilderness
More than 70 per cent of our planet's remaining areas of wilderness are contained in just five countries and are at the mercy of political decisions regarding their future, new research has warned.
Urgent international action is required to ensure the preservation of these last pockets of intact ecosystems, the study says, which calls for mandated conservation targets.
The places where the greatest remaining tracts of wilderness containing mixes of species at near-natural levels of abundance were identified as being in Russia, Canada, Australia, the US and Brazil.
Produced by the University of Queensland (UQ) and the WildlifeConservation Society (WCS), the study published in the journal Nature, says these areas are "increasingly important buffers against changing conditions… Yet they aren't an explicit target in international policy frameworks."
"A century ago, only 15 per cent of the Earth's surface was used by humans to grow crops and raise livestock," he said. "Today, more than 77 per cent of land - excluding Antarctica - and 87 per cent of the ocean has been modified by the direct effects of human activities. It might be hard to believe, but between 1993 and 2009, an area of terrestrial wilderness larger than India - a staggering 3.3 million square kilometres - was lost to human settlement, farming, mining and other pressures."
Wilderness
Largest Deep-Sea Nursery
1000 Octopuses
In the waters off the coast of California, marine scientists are finding a whole world of cephalopod wonders: in the latest instalment, it's a vast number of octopuses huddling over their eggs in the crevices of an extinct underwater volcano.
With an estimated over 1,000 ockies spotted, the area at the Davidson Seamount has now been confirmed as the largest deep-sea octopus nursery every discovered.
"This has never been discovered on the West Coast of the US, never in our sanctuary and never in the world with these numbers," Chad King, a lead scientist on the exploration vessel Nautilus, told KQED News.
As they moved their remotely operated underwater vehicle Hercules through the water at a depth of 3.2 kilometres (2 miles), the scientists spotted never-before-seen aggregations of Muusoctopus robustus octopuses.
An estimated 99 percent of them appeared to be brooding mothers, huddling upside down to protect the eggs they'd laid in crannies in the rock.
1000 Octopuses
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