Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Joe Bob Briggs: Poles Are for Penguins and Polar Bears (Taki's Magazine)
We now have politicians in both major parties who have declared war on "moderates." Not the moderates on the other side, the moderates in their own party. This is the best evidence yet that the vaunted Two-Party System, long beloved of old-school politicians, is dead. Every time I've suggested, over the years, that we're too diverse to limit ourselves to two parties, that we should move closer to a parliamentary system, that the more parties we have the more people are forced to compromise, I always get flak back about "Yeah, that really works for Italy. Is that what you want? Elections every three months because nobody can form a majority?" And yeah, that's what I want. I don't want anyone holding voting control who has, say, 20 percent of the nation's confidence. And that's what we have now.
Jonathan Chait: "Republicans: Pelosi Won't Impeach Because She Knows Trump Is Innocent" (NY Mag)
None of these conservatives even consider an alternate hypothesis: Pelosi does believe Trump has committed high crimes and misdemeanors, but recognizes that Republicans refuse to accept this evidence. Therefore, she has concluded that an impeachment process that culminates in the Senate failing to muster 67 votes for removal will be counterproductive.
Paul Waldman: Republicans really hate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. There's a lesson there for 2020. (Washington Post)
… it doesn't matter which of the Democratic candidates for president now looks as though they might be able to appeal to Republicans, because none of them will. It won't matter who they are or where they come from or what kind of talent they have. Once they're run through the conservative media wringer, everyone on the right will despise them. Which suggests that Democrats should do something radical and pick the candidate they like the best, not the candidate they think other people will like. Most Democrats like Ocasio-Cortez, so they shouldn't be worried if Republicans hate her. Likewise, they shouldn't freak out when Fox News and the rest of the conservative media start going to town on their nominee and whatever negligible approval that person has among Republicans disappears. It's inevitable.
Matthew Yglesias: "'Jexodus,' the fake departure of American Jews from the Democratic Party, explained" (Vox)
According to exit polls, Democrats won 71 percent of the Jewish vote in 2016 and 79 percent in 2018. Polling by SSRS for the American Jewish Committee registers lower levels of Jewish support for Democrats but an identical trend: Democrats won 67 percent of Jews in 2016 and 74 percent in 2018.
Alexandra Petri: Devastating documentary reveals 'Baby Shark' songwriters as morally unimpeachable (Washington Post)
AMERICA, NOW - Millions of Americans described themselves as "devastated" by a documentary full of revelations that the artists behind "Baby Shark" were, in fact, better people than anyone had previously supposed and that it was "inconceivable" that you would ever have any reason to stop listening to the song.
Zoe Kleinman: MySpace admits losing 12 years' worth of music uploads (BBC)
MySpace, one of the first online social networks, has apologised after a server migration caused a huge loss of data.
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Presenting
Michael Egan
took the day off.
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Team Coco
CONAN
from Bruce
Anecdotes
• Terry Colangelo had learned that a good reporter knew what was going on and so he or she needed to read lots of newspapers thoroughly. She followed this advice, and she read this in the classifieds ad section of a newspaper: "$5,000 Reward for killers of Officer Lundy on Dec. 9, 1932." The murder had occurred 12 years previously, and she was interested in why a reward was being offered at that late date. It turned out that a man had been convicted of the murder, and for the last 12 years his mother had been working at night as a scrubwoman. All of the money she had earned she had saved to establish the reward. Several reporters got involved in what had seemed at first to be only a human-interest story, and they uncovered evidence that the scrubwoman's son was innocent of the murder and had been represented by an alcoholic, incompetent lawyer at his trial and appeal. Eventually, Illinois Governor Dwight H. Green pardoned the scrubwoman's son on the unanimous recommendation of the Illinois Department of Correction.
• Bill Russell's mother was tough, and she expected her son to be tough, too. When Bill was nine years old, he and his mother moved to Oakland, California, to join his father, who had gotten a job there. While Bill was outside in the Housing Authority project where he lived, five kids ran by him, and one of the kids slapped him. He told his mother what had happened, and she went with him to find all five kids. When Bill said that they had found the five kids, she said, "Good, because you are going to fight all of them, one at a time." Bill won two fights, and he lost the other three, but his mother told him, "Don't you feel bad now, William. You did right. You stood up for yourself like a man. Always stand up for yourself like a man." As a Boston Celtic, Bill played 13 seasons, and he and the Celtics won 11 championships.
• Johnny Cash's mother recognized that he had musical talent, and she bought him a Sears Roebuck guitar for $6.98. She also washed and ironed someone else's laundry so she could earn money to buy him voice lessons. She gave him 50 cents for a half-hour lesson, and young Johnny went to voice teacher Miss LaVanda Mae Fiedler. She listened to him sing "Long Gone Lonesome Blues," a country hit by Hank Williams, and she listened to him sing it again. She then told him that he was a natural singer and she couldn't teach him anything. Johnny was relieved-now his mother did not have to wash and iron someone else's laundry.
• Early in his life, Bernie Mac knew that he wanted to be a comedian. His mother was crying one day, the television was on, and comedian Bill Cosby made an appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. Bernie was present, hoping that his mother would stop crying, and soon he saw that she was laughing at Bill Cosby even though her tears were still on her cheeks. A little later, she was laughing hard, and no one could tell that she had been crying. Although Bernie was only about four years old, he told his mother, "Mama, that's what I'm going to be. I'm going to be a comedian-so I don't ever have to see you cry."
• J.K. Rowling, creator and author of the Harry Potter books, was not as poor as perhaps the media has made her out to be when she was writing the first Harry Potter book, but she was a single mother who did lack money. One day, she visited another mother whose boy was roughly the same as J.K.'s daughter. That little boy had a room full of toys, and J.K. remembers, "When I packed Jessica's toys away, they fitted into a shoe box, literally. I came home and cried my eyes out." Those feelings of depression are the kind that the Dementors give in the Harry Potter books.
• The paparazzi could be annoying to Audrey Hepburn. Once, a photograph of Audrey with her newly bearded son appeared in a magazine. Because of the new beard, the paparazzi had not recognized her son, so this caption appeared with the photograph: "Audrey com il nuovo amore della sua vita." Translation: "Audrey with the new love of her life." She said, "Well, apart from the 'new,' for once they got something right." That was one media photograph she cut out and framed.
• Jerry Herman wrote the scores for many great Broadway musicals, including Mame and Hello, Dolly! and Mack & Mabel, among others. His mother seems to have been much like Mame. One day, when Jerry was a schoolboy, he came home from school and saw that his mother was hosting a party. He asked her what they were celebrating. Was it someone's birthday, was it an anniversary, was it an obscure holiday? His mother enthusiastically told him, "No, Jerry-it's TODAY!"
• NBA star Isiah Thomas grew up in a tough neighborhood. One day, he stole a plum and got caught by the security guard of the grocery store, who told him that he was going to call the police but that first he was going to call Isiah's mother. Isiah begged him to call the police but not call his mother because he knew that she would be disappointed in him.
• After Cameron Diaz graduated from high school, she signed with a modeling agency and began to travel around the world to model in exotic locales. Her mother gave her a gift at the beginning of her career: a long silver hairpin. Why? If necessary, it could be used as a weapon. Cameron says, "Moms are like that."
• When Joseph Epstein was a small boy of six or seven, he was bored, and he whined to his mother about being bored. She replied, "Really? May I suggest that you knock your head against the wall. It'll take your mind off your boredom." Mr. Epstein writes, "I never again told my mother that I was bored."
• Norton Juster wrote The Phantom Tollbooth, and his mother typed draft after draft. Mr. Juster says that when the book was published, his mother terrorized bookstore owners who did not have copies of the book on sale: "What? You don't have my son's book?"
• Back in the days when radio was big, Bartlett Robinson had the misfortune to be very nervous during an appearance on Young Widder Brown. In his role he was supposed to knock on a door, then say, "I've come to call on Mary." Unfortunately, because of his nerves, he said, "I've called to come on Mary." (This sounds like part of the script for There's Something About Mary.)
• After actress Judi Dench accepted an Oscar for her performance in Shakespeare in Love, she flew back home to England. On the flight, many people congratulated her, and when she woke up after a nap, she even found a congratulatory note pinned to her sleeve.
• When Marilyn Monroe showed up to act the part of an aging jewel thief's girlfriend in The Asphalt Jungle, she told the director, John Huston, how nervous she was. He replied, "If you're not nervous, you might as well give up!"
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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
Had to re-scan the over-the-air TV - KDOC (including ME-TV, Comet, & Charge) and KTLA (including Antenna, TBD, & This) all moved frequencies today.
Public Shaming
John Oliver
John Oliver interviewed Monica Lewinsky during a segment about public shaming on Sunday's episode of Last Week Tonight. The HBO host kicked off the conversation by asking Lewinsky if bullying has worsened over the years.
They then spoke about social media. Lewinsky said that social media could have had both negative and positive effects if it had been around during the scandal. "It might have been worse in the sense that there certainly would have been a lot more opinions that were out there, but where it may have been better would've been that I think I would have heard some support from people," she said. "It might have been a little more balanced."
Earlier in the segment, Oliver addressed Jay Leno's interview on NBC's Today last week. During the interview, Leno said that late-night television lost its "civility" due to the current political climate.
Oliver then shared a number of jokes Leno had made targeted at Lewinsky. Some of the jokes included Leno stating that the humidity outside made people's clothes "stickier than Monica Lewinsky," while another clip showed the host laughing at a headline that read "Lewinsky Gets Back On Her Feet." Oliver also shared that Leno did a Dr. Seuss-inspired bit that featured a book titled The Slut In the Hat.
"If that's what he means by civility, may I offer my new book: Oh the Places You Can Go Fuck Yourself, Jay Leno," Oliver responded.
John Oliver
Country Music
Hall of Fame
On Monday morning, Brooks & Dunn, Ray Stevens and former label executive Jerry Bradley were announced as the newest members of the Country Music Hall of Fame.
Television and radio host Bill Cody, filling in for an under-the-weather Reba McEntire, handled hosting duties for the live-streamed event in the museum's rotunda, where plaques of the inductees are placed. As usual, the three inductees were from the Modern Era, the Veterans Era and a rotating category, which this year is the Non Performer designation.
Modern Era inductees Brooks & Dunn are country's most-awarded and biggest-selling duo of all time, a pairing whose "achievements transcend the country genre," according to Cody. Paired together at the dawn of the Nineties by Arista Records executive Tim DuBois, rising songwriter Kix Brooks and honky-tonk singer Ronnie Dunn went on to have an incredible run of hits including "Brand New Man," "Neon Moon" and "Believe." They also won CMA Entertainer of the Year in 1996. More recently, they've reformed their act and launched a Las Vegas residency with Reba McEntire that has dates scheduled in 2019. In April, they'll release their collaborative album Reboot, featuring Kacey Musgraves, Luke Combs and more.
The scion of Music Row's founding family as the son of Owen Bradley and nephew of Harold, former RCA executive Jerry Bradley helped create the famed Wanted: The Outlaws LP - country's first Platinum album - and signed Ronnie Milsap, Alabama and Eddie Rabbitt during his record label tenure.
Veterans Era inductee Ray Stevens was recognized for his long history in the music industry, including session work for artists like Leroy Van Dyke and co-producing Kris Kristofferson's own recording of "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down." His song "Everything Is Beautiful" went on to win his first Grammy Award and has since been recorded by more than 100 other artists. And, of course, his comedic songs like "The Streak" and "The Mississippi Squirrel Revival" and their videos are still beloved, making him, as Cody noted, the most successful comedy recording artist of all time.
Hall of Fame
Metallica, San Francisco Symphony
San Francisco
Metallica and the San Francisco Symphony will be performing together for the opening event of the new Chase Center, arena officials announced Monday.
The concert on September 6th marks two decades since the band's collaboration with the symphony, which led to the Grammy-award winning "Symphony & Metallica (S&M)" album.
"Bringing together Metallica and the San Francisco Symphony 20 years later for our first event at Chase Center is going to be an incredible and unique performance for the Bay Area," Warriors President and COO Rick Welts said in a statement. "This announcement is one of many of the must-see acts we'll have as we continue to add a variety and diversity of shows to Chase Center's calendar."
The new home of the Golden State Warriors, the arena will announce additional events later this week.
San Francisco
Donating Money
'Egg Boy'
A teenager who cracked a raw egg over an Australian politician in protest at comments blaming Muslim immigration for the Christchurch shootings will reportedly donate most of the money raised for him to victims of the terror attack.
Will Connolly, dubbed "Egg Boy", shot to fame after he was filmed smashing an egg over Queensland senator Fraser Anning during a TV interview. It prompted a scuffle in which the 17-year-old was twice punched and then restrained.
Police said Mr Connolly was arrested but released without charge pending an investigation.
A GoFundMe page was subsequently set up for Mr Connolly by a supporter, who said money raised would go towards his legal fees and "more eggs".
After Mr Connolly was released by police, footage of him was posted on Twitter in which he referred to the men who tackled him to the ground after the incident using Australian slang equivalent to the American 'redneck'.
'Egg Boy'
Defeat For B&B Bigot
Hawaii
The U.S. Supreme Court handed a defeat on Monday to a bed and breakfast owner in Hawaii who turned away a lesbian couple due to her Christian beliefs, but it could soon take up another major case on the conflict between gay and religious rights.
The justices refused to hear an appeal by Phyllis Young, who runs the three-room Aloha Bed & Breakfast in Honolulu, of a lower court's ruling that she violated a Hawaii anti-discrimination law by refusing to rent a room to Diane Cervilli and Taeko Bufford in 2007.
A state court ruled that Young ran afoul of Hawaii's public accommodation law, which among other things bars discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Litigation will now continue to determine what penalty Young might face.
Young, who is Catholic, said her decision to turn away Cervilli and Bufford was protected by her right to free exercise of religion under the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment. Young also argued that Hawaii did not give her fair notice that her business was covered by the public accommodation law.
"The freedom of religion does not give businesses a right to violate non-discrimination laws," said Peter Renn, a lawyer with gay rights group Lambda Legal who represents Cervilli and Bufford, who are no longer a couple. "The Supreme Court declined to consider carving out an exception from this basic principle when a business discriminates based on the sexual orientation of its customers."
Hawaii
12 Years' Worth Of Music
Myspace
Myspace has apparently lost most or all of the music files uploaded by its users before 2015, and it told users that the data was corrupted beyond repair during a server migration. Myspace apparently admitted the problem to concerned users seven or eight months ago, but so few people noticed that there wasn't any news coverage until the past 24 hours.
Myspace, the once-mighty social networking site, has existed since 2003 but has been fading into obscurity for the past decade. Many musicians used to rely on Myspace to spread their music, and over the years it hosted 53 million songs from 14.2 million artists.
Some of Myspace's loyal users noticed more than a year ago that they couldn't play music or download music files and asked Myspace for answers. Myspace initially told those users that it would recover the lost data, but months later it admitted that the files were gone forever.
It isn't clear what caused the data loss other than a "server migration" problem referenced by Myspace, and the company hasn't said whether it kept any backups or what happened to any such backups. We contacted Myspace today and will update this story if we get any new information.
In February 2018, a Myspace support rep told a user, "There is an issue with all songs/videos uploaded over 3 years ago," according to a transcript of the support email posted on Reddit at the time. "We are aware of the issue and I have been informed the issue will be fixed, however, there is no exact time frame for when this will be completed. Until this is resolved the option to download is not available."
Myspace
Magnetic Field
Earth
A new analysis of people's brain waves when surrounded by different magnetic fields suggests that people have a "sixth sense" for magnetism.
Birds, fish and some other creatures can sense Earth's magnetic field and use it for navigation (SN: 6/14/14, p. 10). Scientists have long wondered whether humans, too, boast this kind of magnetoreception. Now, by exposing people to an Earth-strength magnetic field pointed in different directions in the lab, researchers from the United States and Japan have discovered distinct brain wave patterns that occur in response to rotating the field in a certain way.
These findings, reported in a study published online March 18 in eNeuro, offer evidence that people do subconsciously respond to Earth's magnetic field - although it's not yet clear exactly why or how our brains use this information.
"The first impression when I read the [study] was like, 'Wow, I cannot believe it!'" says Can Xie, a biophysicist at Peking University in Beijing. Previous tests of human magnetoreception have yielded inconclusive results. This new evidence "is one step forward for the magnetoreception field and probably a big step for the human magnetic sense," he says. "I do hope we can see replications and further investigations in the near future."
During the experiment, 26 participants each sat with their eyes closed in a dark, quiet chamber lined with electrical coils. These coils manipulated the magnetic field inside the chamber such that it remained the same strength as Earth's natural field but could be pointed in any direction. Participants wore an EEG cap that recorded the electrical activity of their brains while the surrounding magnetic field rotated in various directions.
Earth
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