Sunday, May 28, 2017

62. 5/28/17


"President Richard M. Nixon tried to throw John Lennon out of the United States before the 1972 election. (He feared that Lennon, who opposed the war in Vietnam, might turn younger voters against him.)"


I wish the RW Wackos would get this one fact straight:

"[T]he Obama administration's guidelines for the agency [ICE] specified terrorists and violent criminals as priorities for deportation. But Trump's January orders effectively vacated those guidelines.

BOOK REVIEW 19 SEASON OF THE WITCH

"Because of the efforts of Matthew Hopkins, England's 'Witchfinder General,' more than a hundred women in eastern England were tried and hanged as witches between 1644 and 1647."


The novel is narrated by Matthew's sister, Alice. There is a focus on "modern analyses of psychopathology" ... "Underdown knows her history, but in this ominous, claustrophobic novel the past is haunted by the possibilities of our frightening present."


"Eight months before Election Day, Donald J. Trump was about a half-hour into his stump speech at a convention center in Louisville, Ky., when several protesters interrupted his rally. 'Get 'em out of here!' he bellowed in response."


Let me summarize:
  1. Matthew Heimbach (a white nationalist wearing a red "Make America Great Again" hat) gave a hard shove in the back to Kashiya Nwanguma, a black college student who had been holding up a poster depicting Mr. Trump's face on the body of a pig.
  2. Trump yells, "Get 'em out of here!"
  3. Heimbach: "He [Trump] knew what he was asking for."
  4. Two lawsuits filed:
    1. Nwanguma sues Trump (Heimbach acted as his "agent")
    2. Heimbach sues Trump (Trump had "directed him and others to take action" plus I want my legal fees paid 'cuz you said you'd do that.
  5. Heimbach filed his lawsuit per se. He spends much of his time "railing online against Jews, gays and immigrants." Mark my words, eventually he'll get a smart Jewish lawyer. They always do.
  6. This should get interesting.


"In a 2016 study of law firm résumés, men who listed hobbies like sailing and listening to classical music had a callback rate 12 times higher than those who signaled working-class origins, by mentioning country music, for example."


Ms. Williams makes (at least) three brilliant points:
  1. Dems should champion a new education-to-employment system;
  2. Dems failure to communicate a meaningful alternative to tax cuts for the rich; and
  3. MLK: "Dignity demands a job and a paycheck that last through the week." Dems needs to "take up that mantle and stop sleepwalking our way to the next electoral defeat."


"At least 50 films in the movie database IMDB.com have cast and crew credits that surpass 2,000 names each."


I always stay to the bitter end, because 1) there may be additional scenes from the actual film and/or promos or silly credit sequences, like many of the Pixar films; and 2) I know people in the business and get a ridiculous jolt of happiness when I see their names!


"In 2012, a man in Palm Beach County, Fla. ate so many cockroaches and worms in a bug-eating contest that he vomited, collapsed and died."


A few more (palatable) quotes from the article:

"Florida represents so much that's good, bad and bizarre about the United States, all rolled into one long state."

"Geographically speaking, Florida is as south as it gets. Yet its northern reaches are its most Southern."

"Tallahassee is 'chill'."

"Hemingway's house, where the 20-plus six-toed animals are truly just as much an attraction as the Nobel Prize winner's home itself ..."


BOOK REVIEW 11 CRUDE AWAKENING

"The depth and breadth of the Gulf of Mexico have fluctuated since it began forming 150 million years ago: Its northern tides once lapped shoreline in present-day Illinois."


"I should confess I began the book skeptical of being entertained and edified by 592 pages about a body of water that has come to be used like a sump for the wastes of industry. My doubts proved unwarranted. [Jack E.] Davis has written a beautiful homage to a neglected sea, a lyrical paean to its remaining estuaries and marshes, and a marvelous mash-up of human and environmental history."


"Two days before he was scheduled to die, John Shields roused in his hospice bed with an unusual idea. He wanted to organize an Irish wake for himself. It would be old-fashioned with music and booze, except for one notable detail -- he would be present."


"'Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?' -- MARY OLIVER"


This is a fantastic, beautiful piece of journalism. I doubt I am the only one to struggle with this issue. Should not death be the one cosmic task that is God's alone? But why should people suffer horribly?

And the doc has to go on vacation soon.


"In 2015, women made up about 36 percent of executives in the legal-marijuana industry, compared with 22 percent in senior roles in other industries."


"Lyn Kusher, 66, is the founder of Ma Kush's Natural, which is based in Encinitas, Calif., and sells soaps, lotions, balms and edible cannabis treats."

She really ought to have her own strain named after her!


"The Chinese technology company Baidu turned an app that started as a visual dictionary into a site that uses facial recognition to find missing people. In one case, it helped a family find a child kidnapped 27 years earlier."


"Philip K. Dick meets George Orwell. There are plans to use it to predict crimes, lend money, track people on the country's ubiquitous closed-circuit cameras, alleviate traffic jams, create self-guided missiles and censor the internet."

That dude better keep close tabs on all the robots he creates ...

TIME MACHINE
May 28, 2013
4 years ago


SUBWAY BALLET

Cool.

THE ROVING RUNNER RIDES A BIKE

The first days of NYC's bike-share program, Citi Bike.



RIVERA THROWS FIRST PITCH AND LAST IN HIS FIRST BLOWN SAVE OF YEAR

"A few hours before the Yankees and Mets engaged one another on the field the Mets were kind enough to honor Rivera with a few presents to commemorate his career. In a conference room underneath Citi Field, Jeff Wilpon, the Mets chief operating officer, asked Rivera to throw out the ceremonial first pitch.

'I know you usually throw the last pitch,' Wilpon said. 'But we're going to ask you to throw the first pitch.'

The comment was meant to be deferential to Rivera, not a portent of bad things to come.

But on a bizarre night that was all about great starting pitching, it turned out to be just that. Rivera, baseball's career saves leader, threw out the ceremonial first pitch to John Franco, the Mets longtime closer, as the Mets honored Rivera's final season.

Then, roughly three hours later, Rivera threw the final pitch of the game as Wilpon suggested he would. The outcome, though, was unexpected.

Rivera gave up three straight hits and two runs in the ninth inning to blow his first save of the season after 18 straight conversions, and the Mets beat the Yankees, 2-1."


Hard to believe it was only four years ago.

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82. 6/17/17

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