A9 ATTACKS NEAR LONDON BRIDGE INVOLVED SWERVING VAN AND MAN WIELDING KNIFE
"A man named Gerard told the BBC that he saw men stabbing everyone they could and shouting 'this is for Allah.'
He saw three men with knives 'and they stabbed a girl,' he said. 'So I follow them, toward Borough Market, they were running into the pubs and bars and stabbing everyone. They were running up, saying this is for Allah, and they run up and stabbed this girl 10, maybe 15 times'."
Extremely obvious point #1:
Most people with even half a brain can understand that the billions of people around the world who worship Allah as their God would not recognize the Allah these scumbags are talking about.
Islam is, as much as Christianity, Judaism, Wicca, a religion of peace and love for humankind.
Extremely obvious point #2:
With every new incident, we are seeing more and more brave people like Gerard, or the Portland heroes, Ricky John Best and Taliesi Mydrddin Namkai-Meche, who died after intervening with a racist killer.
We need to truly celebrate and laud these people -- put the media spotlight on the good, not the irredeemably evil.
Extremely obvious point #3:
It sounds sorta sick when you hear the anchors saying something like -- " ... as horrible as it is, only seven people died. It could have been so much worse!"
Not for those seven families, of course. But there is a more important factor -- largely unspoken, it seems to me -- having to do with the gun laws in the U.K.
Strict. Nearly impossible for private citizens. And yes, if you stare this thing in the face -- just imagine how many lives would have been lost if guns had been involved?
And of course, the good guys had the guns and knew how to use them at the right time, in the correct proportion. One person received "nonfatal" gunshot wounds.
video
The rest of today's paper is undeniably cheerier:
Travel 10 FINDING PURA VIDA ON THE COSTA RICAN COAST
The things I did not know about Costa Rica, who grow my coffee beans!
"Costa Rica has no standing military, choosing to focus on other issues like environmental conservation. Its efforts (about 25 percent of the country is protected) have paid off: While Costa Rica occupies a mere 0.03 percent of the earth's surface, it has almost 6 percent of the world's biodiversity. It's the ideal place for an ecologically conscious vacation."
And replacing the U.S. as the worldwide leader in caring for the environment:
Costa Rica!
Arts & Leisure 20 BULLETS, BRACELETS AND A BIG HEART
" ... I'm tired of sincerity being something we have to be afraid of doing. It's been like that for 20 years, that the entertainment and art world has shied away from sincerity, real sincerity, because they feel they have to wink at the audience because that's what the kids like. We have to do the real stories now. The world is in crisis ... Art is supposed to bring beauty to the world."
Despite the gross generalizations (I wish she had made a distinction between Hollywood and Indie filmmaking), I'm looking forward to seeing this. I have not seen Monster, her only other feature.
A1 HOW G.O.P. LEADERS CAME TO REJECT CLIMATE SCIENCE
" ... a partisan chasm that grew over nine years like a crack in the Antarctic shelf ..."
"Unshackled by the Citizens United decision ... Koch Industries and Americans for Prosperity started an all-fronts campaign with television advertising, social media and cross-country events aimed at electing lawmakers who would not have to worry about new pollution regulations."
and finally
"Earlier this year, James A. Baker III, one of the Republican Party's more eminent senior figures, met with senior White House officials to urge them to consider incorporating a carbon tax as part of a broader tax overhaul package -- a way to both pay for proposed cuts to corporate tax rates and help save the planet ..."
Whoa, whoa ... hold it right there, Mister Rich Guyz. We appreciate your assistance in saving our planet, but we're def not gonna stand by and let you give yourselves another massive tax cut.
" ... Art Laffer, George P. Schultz and Henry M. Paulson have also pushed the idea.
'There are members from deep-red districts who have approached me about figuring out how to become part of this effort,' Mr. [Carlos] Curbelo [Republican/FLA] said. 'I know we have the truth on our side. So I'm confident that we'll win -- eventually."
On what? The tax cut or saving the planet?
A5 AFROBEAT BRINGS PROFIT, MOSTLY FOR THE PIRATES
"We're no longer getting revenue from oil, so we're arguing that content is the new crude ..."
Pop songs at $100 a barrel.
" ... international music distributors largely ignored the nation and its nascent middle class as a potential market. With few ways of buying the overseas music that was so popular here, illegal sales flourished."
So the music industry really has no one else to blame but themselves.
"Trying to relax at a Tex-Mex restaurant in Lagos after a recent show, Ms. Shay was sipping a margarita when a bartender interrupted repeatedly to ask how his music could get noticed. She told him to email her a demo.
'You have to put in the work,' she advised. 'Nobody is going to do it for you'."
And if that bartender has any talent, it seems like he'll be the last person to ever see any money from it.
Unless he gets lucky like Ms. Shay.
Yolo Yolo
A1 ISRAEL'S 1967 DOOMSDAY PLAN: A NUCLEAR DISPLAY
"Israel won the war so quickly that the atomic device was never moved to Sinai. [This] account ... reveals Israel's early consideration of how it might use its nuclear arsenal to preserve itself."
neither shall they learn war anymore
B2 THE POWER OF A POSITIVE ATTITUDE
"The minute I make a deal with someone, I put a photo of them in a matted frame on my wall. They look beautiful. They're like my kids on my walls.
But the minute I hear them sounding like a victim on the phone, I hang up, walk over to the wall and I flip their picture upside-down. They'll never succeed. Victims don't succeed."
Sure would be interesting to see what percentage of photos have been flipped!
Sports Sunday 3 VOLQUEZ OF MIAMI THROWS A NO-HITTER
Some cool factoids from the 2017 season's first no-hitter:
A7 BARED BREAST ENTHRALLS FUTURE CZAR, AND STOKES A CULTURE WAR
" ... the movie is an insult to the faithful, which is a crime in Russia."
Of course it is.
"It is an eye-catching wardrobe malfunction that beguiles a future czar."
And we all know how eye-catching wardrobe malfunctions can be, don't we?
Trailer, wardrobe malfunction, and all
I think I want to see this film!
A12 DID THE TURKISH PRESIDENT'S SECURITY DETAIL ATTACK PROTESTERS IN WASHINGTON? WHAT THE VIDEO SHOWS
This is Zapruder-like in its frame-by-frame examination of video.
wow
SPECIAL SECTION F1 THE HOLDUP
At first, I almost passed on even looking at this "special section." It seemed to be yet another piece on the old, retired gangster who's such a nice grandpa and takes out the trash on Thursdays ...
And although it sort of begins that way, ultimately the focus shifts to a man named Ed Morlock [oh if only the gangster had been named Eloi ... oh, well] and his family.
"'I might rob an armored truck before I die,' he told me on that summer day's visit."
Maybe he'll use that old wheelchair gag for real.
A1 OBAMA'S DILEMMA ON A TROOP SURGE NOW VEXES TRUMP
"The dispute pits two generals who had formative experiences in Afghanistan -- Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and the national security adviser, Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster -- against political aides, led by the chief strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, who fear that sending in more troops would be a slippery slope toward nation-building."
Politics does indeed make strange bedfellows.
Look, we progressives are not isolationists.
But it is hard to argue with Bannon & Co. [yuck, I feel sick] regarding the current situation in Afghanistan. What's it been -- four or five administrations trying to help the Afghan government beat back the Taliban? Zero-sum game.
Sunday Styles 1 THE TAILOR OF 125TH STREET
That is one cool-looking suit.
Great article.
Book Review 8 BOLDLY SADDLING UP
"Shatner writes in the book about one terrifying experience -- a horse fell on his leg, and he faltered in his attempts to get off the ground afterward -- that 'gave me the insight on how to play the death scene in "Star Trek: Generations".' He writes about his thoughts on set: 'I'll just do what I did with the horse. I'll get up, I'll fall down, I'll get up, I'll fall down.' So that's what I did. It was very effective."
Perhaps. But his last (improvised) line:
"It's been ... fun!" really sucks.
Arts & Leisure 1 WHEN THE FIRE FADES
"The Brahms Violin Concerto is a musical old master painting. Unmistakably important, enduringly popular, comfortingly familiar, it's a surefire draw.
At Lincoln Center in May, this concerto did its job for the New York Philharmonic, drawing a healthy crowd to David Geffen Hall. Alan Gilbert, the orchestra's music director, led the work, took a bow and then broke for intermission."
[nice going, NYT, leaving Leonidas Kavakos without a drop of ink. He actually played the concerto, ya know?]
"The audience could read in the program what was next: works by the living composers Anna Thorvaldsdottir and Esa-Pekka Salonen. There was a small exodus of new-music-phobes during intermission, and when Mr. Gilbert returned to conduct the second half, he gazed out over an auditorium that looked like Swiss cheese.
Those who stayed, cheered. Wildly. But Mr. Gilbert noticed the defections.
'Who programmed this?' he asked backstage afterward with a wry smile, a towel in one hand and a bottle of Brooklyn Pilsner waiting nearby. The programming, of course, had been his."
"His idea for his first marquee project raised a few eyebrows: He wanted the Philharmonic to give staged performances of György Ligeti's avant-garde 1970s opera 'Le Grand Macabre'.
'I said, "I think this will sell out." I don't think anybody believed that.' But it did ... it was a triumph ... 'we could have done three more performances ... people were scalping tickets outside'."
So what happened to all that fire?
Sounds like orchestral politics to me. How sad. I hope Japp van Zweden works out well.
The New York Times Magazine NEW YORK STORIES
You have to check this out. The entire magazine is a comic. Even the crossword puzzle is hand-drawn. One of those rare, "gotta save this" examples of why I still love print so much!
Sunday Review 8 AMERICA IN RETREAT
A general op-ed primer on why and how things are going to hell in a handbasket
and how the rest of the world is getting their chuckles on ...
"A man named Gerard told the BBC that he saw men stabbing everyone they could and shouting 'this is for Allah.'
He saw three men with knives 'and they stabbed a girl,' he said. 'So I follow them, toward Borough Market, they were running into the pubs and bars and stabbing everyone. They were running up, saying this is for Allah, and they run up and stabbed this girl 10, maybe 15 times'."
Extremely obvious point #1:
Most people with even half a brain can understand that the billions of people around the world who worship Allah as their God would not recognize the Allah these scumbags are talking about.
Islam is, as much as Christianity, Judaism, Wicca, a religion of peace and love for humankind.
Extremely obvious point #2:
With every new incident, we are seeing more and more brave people like Gerard, or the Portland heroes, Ricky John Best and Taliesi Mydrddin Namkai-Meche, who died after intervening with a racist killer.
We need to truly celebrate and laud these people -- put the media spotlight on the good, not the irredeemably evil.
Extremely obvious point #3:
It sounds sorta sick when you hear the anchors saying something like -- " ... as horrible as it is, only seven people died. It could have been so much worse!"
Not for those seven families, of course. But there is a more important factor -- largely unspoken, it seems to me -- having to do with the gun laws in the U.K.
Strict. Nearly impossible for private citizens. And yes, if you stare this thing in the face -- just imagine how many lives would have been lost if guns had been involved?
And of course, the good guys had the guns and knew how to use them at the right time, in the correct proportion. One person received "nonfatal" gunshot wounds.
video
The rest of today's paper is undeniably cheerier:
Travel 10 FINDING PURA VIDA ON THE COSTA RICAN COAST
The things I did not know about Costa Rica, who grow my coffee beans!
"Costa Rica has no standing military, choosing to focus on other issues like environmental conservation. Its efforts (about 25 percent of the country is protected) have paid off: While Costa Rica occupies a mere 0.03 percent of the earth's surface, it has almost 6 percent of the world's biodiversity. It's the ideal place for an ecologically conscious vacation."
And replacing the U.S. as the worldwide leader in caring for the environment:
Costa Rica!
Arts & Leisure 20 BULLETS, BRACELETS AND A BIG HEART
" ... I'm tired of sincerity being something we have to be afraid of doing. It's been like that for 20 years, that the entertainment and art world has shied away from sincerity, real sincerity, because they feel they have to wink at the audience because that's what the kids like. We have to do the real stories now. The world is in crisis ... Art is supposed to bring beauty to the world."
Despite the gross generalizations (I wish she had made a distinction between Hollywood and Indie filmmaking), I'm looking forward to seeing this. I have not seen Monster, her only other feature.
A1 HOW G.O.P. LEADERS CAME TO REJECT CLIMATE SCIENCE
" ... a partisan chasm that grew over nine years like a crack in the Antarctic shelf ..."
"Unshackled by the Citizens United decision ... Koch Industries and Americans for Prosperity started an all-fronts campaign with television advertising, social media and cross-country events aimed at electing lawmakers who would not have to worry about new pollution regulations."
and finally
"Earlier this year, James A. Baker III, one of the Republican Party's more eminent senior figures, met with senior White House officials to urge them to consider incorporating a carbon tax as part of a broader tax overhaul package -- a way to both pay for proposed cuts to corporate tax rates and help save the planet ..."
Whoa, whoa ... hold it right there, Mister Rich Guyz. We appreciate your assistance in saving our planet, but we're def not gonna stand by and let you give yourselves another massive tax cut.
" ... Art Laffer, George P. Schultz and Henry M. Paulson have also pushed the idea.
'There are members from deep-red districts who have approached me about figuring out how to become part of this effort,' Mr. [Carlos] Curbelo [Republican/FLA] said. 'I know we have the truth on our side. So I'm confident that we'll win -- eventually."
On what? The tax cut or saving the planet?
A5 AFROBEAT BRINGS PROFIT, MOSTLY FOR THE PIRATES
"We're no longer getting revenue from oil, so we're arguing that content is the new crude ..."
Pop songs at $100 a barrel.
" ... international music distributors largely ignored the nation and its nascent middle class as a potential market. With few ways of buying the overseas music that was so popular here, illegal sales flourished."
So the music industry really has no one else to blame but themselves.
"Trying to relax at a Tex-Mex restaurant in Lagos after a recent show, Ms. Shay was sipping a margarita when a bartender interrupted repeatedly to ask how his music could get noticed. She told him to email her a demo.
'You have to put in the work,' she advised. 'Nobody is going to do it for you'."
And if that bartender has any talent, it seems like he'll be the last person to ever see any money from it.
Unless he gets lucky like Ms. Shay.
Yolo Yolo
A1 ISRAEL'S 1967 DOOMSDAY PLAN: A NUCLEAR DISPLAY
"Israel won the war so quickly that the atomic device was never moved to Sinai. [This] account ... reveals Israel's early consideration of how it might use its nuclear arsenal to preserve itself."
neither shall they learn war anymore
B2 THE POWER OF A POSITIVE ATTITUDE
"The minute I make a deal with someone, I put a photo of them in a matted frame on my wall. They look beautiful. They're like my kids on my walls.
But the minute I hear them sounding like a victim on the phone, I hang up, walk over to the wall and I flip their picture upside-down. They'll never succeed. Victims don't succeed."
Sure would be interesting to see what percentage of photos have been flipped!
Sports Sunday 3 VOLQUEZ OF MIAMI THROWS A NO-HITTER
Some cool factoids from the 2017 season's first no-hitter:
- Volquez was 1-7, with a 4.44 ERA going into the game
- He'll be 34 in a few weeks
- He hadn't gone longer than 6 innings in any of his previous starts this season
- His name used to be Edison. He put an "N" between the "I" and the "S" in 2007.
- When he signed with the Rangers in 2001, it was under the name Julio Reyes.
- In 2015, he started Game One of the World Series for the Kansas City Royals. He was not told that his father had just passed away. Weird, until you read that his family had asked for that ...
A7 BARED BREAST ENTHRALLS FUTURE CZAR, AND STOKES A CULTURE WAR
" ... the movie is an insult to the faithful, which is a crime in Russia."
Of course it is.
"It is an eye-catching wardrobe malfunction that beguiles a future czar."
And we all know how eye-catching wardrobe malfunctions can be, don't we?
Trailer, wardrobe malfunction, and all
I think I want to see this film!
A12 DID THE TURKISH PRESIDENT'S SECURITY DETAIL ATTACK PROTESTERS IN WASHINGTON? WHAT THE VIDEO SHOWS
This is Zapruder-like in its frame-by-frame examination of video.
wow
SPECIAL SECTION F1 THE HOLDUP
At first, I almost passed on even looking at this "special section." It seemed to be yet another piece on the old, retired gangster who's such a nice grandpa and takes out the trash on Thursdays ...
And although it sort of begins that way, ultimately the focus shifts to a man named Ed Morlock [oh if only the gangster had been named Eloi ... oh, well] and his family.
"'I might rob an armored truck before I die,' he told me on that summer day's visit."
Maybe he'll use that old wheelchair gag for real.
A1 OBAMA'S DILEMMA ON A TROOP SURGE NOW VEXES TRUMP
"The dispute pits two generals who had formative experiences in Afghanistan -- Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and the national security adviser, Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster -- against political aides, led by the chief strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, who fear that sending in more troops would be a slippery slope toward nation-building."
Politics does indeed make strange bedfellows.
Look, we progressives are not isolationists.
But it is hard to argue with Bannon & Co. [yuck, I feel sick] regarding the current situation in Afghanistan. What's it been -- four or five administrations trying to help the Afghan government beat back the Taliban? Zero-sum game.
Sunday Styles 1 THE TAILOR OF 125TH STREET
That is one cool-looking suit.
Great article.
Book Review 8 BOLDLY SADDLING UP
"Shatner writes in the book about one terrifying experience -- a horse fell on his leg, and he faltered in his attempts to get off the ground afterward -- that 'gave me the insight on how to play the death scene in "Star Trek: Generations".' He writes about his thoughts on set: 'I'll just do what I did with the horse. I'll get up, I'll fall down, I'll get up, I'll fall down.' So that's what I did. It was very effective."
Perhaps. But his last (improvised) line:
"It's been ... fun!" really sucks.
Arts & Leisure 1 WHEN THE FIRE FADES
"The Brahms Violin Concerto is a musical old master painting. Unmistakably important, enduringly popular, comfortingly familiar, it's a surefire draw.
At Lincoln Center in May, this concerto did its job for the New York Philharmonic, drawing a healthy crowd to David Geffen Hall. Alan Gilbert, the orchestra's music director, led the work, took a bow and then broke for intermission."
[nice going, NYT, leaving Leonidas Kavakos without a drop of ink. He actually played the concerto, ya know?]
"The audience could read in the program what was next: works by the living composers Anna Thorvaldsdottir and Esa-Pekka Salonen. There was a small exodus of new-music-phobes during intermission, and when Mr. Gilbert returned to conduct the second half, he gazed out over an auditorium that looked like Swiss cheese.
Those who stayed, cheered. Wildly. But Mr. Gilbert noticed the defections.
'Who programmed this?' he asked backstage afterward with a wry smile, a towel in one hand and a bottle of Brooklyn Pilsner waiting nearby. The programming, of course, had been his."
"His idea for his first marquee project raised a few eyebrows: He wanted the Philharmonic to give staged performances of György Ligeti's avant-garde 1970s opera 'Le Grand Macabre'.
'I said, "I think this will sell out." I don't think anybody believed that.' But it did ... it was a triumph ... 'we could have done three more performances ... people were scalping tickets outside'."
So what happened to all that fire?
Sounds like orchestral politics to me. How sad. I hope Japp van Zweden works out well.
The New York Times Magazine NEW YORK STORIES
You have to check this out. The entire magazine is a comic. Even the crossword puzzle is hand-drawn. One of those rare, "gotta save this" examples of why I still love print so much!
Sunday Review 8 AMERICA IN RETREAT
A general op-ed primer on why and how things are going to hell in a handbasket
TIME MACHINE
June 4, 1926
91 years ago
"A little Irish girl, the 19-year-old daughter of a British naval officer, has accomplished the greatest literary hoax of the century."
"'I thought every one would realize that it was only fiction,' she declares."
Hardly a hoax. A horny 19-year-old girl writes a hot fictional diary. I can't find anything in the article that suggests she set out to deceive people.
"Mrs. Mildred Dervoe, 37 years old, who lives with her husband, Werner, an accountant, and their 13-year-old son, Harrison, at 229 St. John's Place, Broolyn, was arrested at noon yesterday by detectives of the Fifth Avenue Squad on suspicion that she was the woman who in the last five years has robbed various Fifth Avenue jewelry establishments of about $100,000 in gems."
"[She] declared she bought the diamond breastpin ... from a Mrs. Ethel Tyson of Des Moines and Chicago, whom, she said, she had met in the Ritz-Carlton. She paid very little for the article, she said, and declared that she didn't want to talk any more about Mrs. Tyson, 'because I don't want to make trouble for her, as I understand she has a hazy character'."
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