69. 6/4/17

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:

• 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

and how the rest of the world is getting their chuckles on ...

TIME MACHINE
June 4, 1926
91 years ago

Page 1 GIRL TRICKS WORLD WITH LITERARY HOAX, INTENDED AS "JOKE"

"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.

Page 1 WOMAN IS ARRESTED AS 5TH AV. GEM THIEF

"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'."

Those hazy lazy crazy days of summer 1926.

Page 9 NORGE'S START FROM, SPITZBERGEN, AFTER LONG DELAY, FOR THE NORTH POLE

68. 6/3/17

A20 THE PROBLEM WITH JARED KUSHNER

Well, Lynn, you're probably right. Like father like son, I guess.

"Stupidity, paranoia, malevolence -- it's hard to distinguish among competing explanations for the behavior of people in this administration."

I suppose when you get right down to it -- I was semi-rooting for Jared to be acquitted of all this simply because he and Ivanka represented the liberal wing of this administration!

"No other White House -- no business, except maybe a wholly owned and rather tawdry and occasionally bankrupt commercial real estate operation -- would be run this way."

A21 TO BE GREAT, AMERICA MUST BE GOOD (Susan E. Rice)

"Four and a half months is not long, but President Trump has accomplished an extraordinary amount in a short time. With shocking speed, he has wreaked havoc: hobbling our core alliances, jettisoning American values and abdicating United States leadership of the world. That's a whole lot of winning -- for Russia and China."

"How consequential is this choice [pulling out of Paris agreement]? The network of alliances that distinguishes America from other powers and has kept our nation safe and strong for decades is now in jeopardy. We will see the cost when next we need the world to rally to our side."

A8 THE ECONOMIC FALLOUT OF THE CLIMATE MOVE? THAT DEPENDS ON HOW WE VALUE TIME

"So the real question is not whether some jobs involving fossil fuels will go away if greenhouse gases are regulated more stringently; what matters is whether the jobs that emerge to replace them will pay better or worse."

It's time.

A15 PITTSBURGH? PRESIDENT MAY HAVE USED A RUSTY METAPHOR

"'Trump apparently wants to take Pittsburgh back to this,' said Mr. [Dan B.] Frankel, a democrat who represents part of the city. 'We won't go back'."

"If he [Uber driver] had the president in his car, he'd drive him through the Fort Pitt Tunnel to catch the view of the city ..."

The tunnel opened when I was 7. I made this drive so many hundreds of times, I can't imagine why I ever took it for granted.

Remember to stay in the two right-hand lanes if you want to go to Oakland or Squirrel Hill.

Damn, I miss the Burgh. This is dedicated to my entire family:

"Shashank Laxminarayan Suresh, 28, a native of India who works in the data science department at the health care provider Highmark, said he had found Pittsburgh friendly and welcoming. He lives in the city's Squirrel Hill neighborhood.

'There is so much opportunity in the technology fields here,' he said, 'People want to help you here, and I have never had anyone who was unkind to me because I am an immigrant.' He added, 'It's a very happening place'!"

Let's all go to Mineo's.

A7 VIOLENCE FLARES AT KABUL PROTEST, WITH AFGHAN FORCES FIRING TOWARD CROWD

"'We are still here, although the police shot at people ... we are here, and we will not leave until we reach our goal of getting justice'."

Justice. What a nebulous concept for a society in such 24/7 turmoil.

"Demonstrators began moving toward the presidential palace, some chanting, 'Death to the Taliban! Death to Haqqani!' -- a reference to the wing of the Taliban that the Afghan intelligence agency has said was behind the bombing."

"The protest had been meant to hold the government accountable for a tremendous security failure on Wednesday."

Accountability. What a nebulous concept ...

C6 FROM 1687, EARLY SOUNDS IN ALL THEIR VIBRANCY

When I was a senior at the Interlochen Arts Academy, I had an inspiring Music History teacher by the name of Knight Vernon. The course was pretty extensive and I've been an ongoing student of music history ever since.

Even then, I thought that I knew a lot about Baroque and even pre-Baroque music.

One night, I stumbled into the room of our dorm staff, a guy named Tim Hubert. [Ted, do you remember him, by any chance?] His room was completely stuffed with bookshelves filled with record albums. I started to peruse ...

They were pretty much all Baroque or pre-Baroque music. Names I had never heard of. Albrechtsberger (wrote a neat trombone concerto); Albinoni concerti; and tons of stuff even more obscure. Tim could tell you every detail about every piece on every record!

Thus, I didn't feel too bad when I read this wonderful review of Bonaventura Aliotti's (Wikipedia, 2 lines) 1687 oratorio 'Santa Rosalia.'

"Aliotti's style recalls the operatic Monteverdi at times, without ever reaching a similar level of sustained inspiration."

Then why not perform some Monteverdi? Just kidding. By that reasoning, we'd never hear any Haydn!

"Ezra Seltzer, a stalwart cellist in New York's new old-music scene, was superb in his solos."

C3 KATHY GRIFFIN IS UNDER INVESTIGATION FOR PHOTO

"'I don't think I will have a career after this,' she said tearfully. 'I'm going to be honest. He broke me'."

It's so darned hard to feel sorry for her -- but this is way out there. I'm sure the Secret Service could make better use of their time.

A14 GIRL, 12, WINS SPELLING BEE, BUT EVEN SHE IS STUMPED BY THE PRESIDENT'S NONSENSE

"In an interview on 'New Day' on CNN, she was asked by hosts Chris Cuomo and Alisyn Camerota to spell 'covfefe,' the bewildering nonword President Trump used in a tweet early on Wednesday morning that set off a stampede of speculation and joking on social media.

When she hesitated after asking its pronunciation and language of origin, Mr. Cuomo ribbed her: 'Stop stalling! Do you know how to spell this word?'

When she spelled it 'cofefe,' Mr. Cuomo pronounced it 'good enough' and Ms. Camerota said: 'Close. You win'."

CNN does a terrible disservice to this young woman by bringing Trump's nonsense to the forefront of the interview. She's studied for years to reach this level, and all the haircuts want to talk about is gesundzheit ...

And no -- "close enough; you win" is not what happens in Spelling Bees, as well as Scrabble®.

By the way, of all the words mentioned in the article, the winning word -- marocain -- is the only one that is good in North American Scrabble® ... it also has two anagrams:

armonica, which takes a front-hook of "H" -- and macaroni, which takes the normal "S" back-hook, as well as the "C" (macaronic) ...

A1 NO ONE WILL SAY IF TRUMP DENIES CLIMATE SCIENCE

"As a businessman, President Trump was a frequent and scornful critic of the concept of climate change. In the years before running for president, he called it 'nonexistent,' 'mythical' and a 'a total con job.' Whenever snow fell in New York, it seemed, he would mock the idea of global warming."

So what's his view today as the leader of the Free World?

"'I have not had an opportunity to have that discussion,' [said Melissa McCar ... I mean], Sean Spicer."

"'I do not speak for the president,' said Ryan Zinke, the interior secretary."

"'You should ask him that,' said Kellyanne Conway, the White House counselor."

I watched Scott Pruitt's press conference yesterday in awesome horror. He said "the question of what Mr. Trump believed about the science never came up during the administration's deliberations over the Paris agreement."

"Spicer said twice this week that he had not had the chance to ask the president. Asked if he would find time to take the question to Mr. Trump, he said, 'If I can, I will'."

God help us all.

A12 FROM SAVING KETCHUP PACKETS TO SETTING THE BUDGET

"When you grew up in a household where mom would keep the extra ketchup packets from McDonald's and keep them in a drawer just in case there came a day when you couldn't afford to buy ketchup anymore ..."

And the Depression-era parents passed this ethic down to their children.

Peek into our disorganized pantry. That's it -- right behind the extra-virgin olive oil -- 37 packets of McDonald's ketchup.

It's not even Heinz, who now offer the stuff with no high fructose corn syrup!

TIME MACHINE
June 3, 1950
67 years ago

Page 1 McCARTHY DEFIANT OF SENATE CRITICS

"Senator McCarthy said today that sales of Russian furs in this country were a major source of income to finance Soviet espionage."

But first he made sure that his wife carefully hid all her Russian mink coats.

Page 3 HUNDREDS OF REFUGEES ASK TO STAY IN WEST BERLIN AFTER YOUTH MARCH

"All said they had taken advantage of police preoccupation with the rally to slip away and hide along the sector borders or with friends and relatives."

"Some of the 270 are looked upon as simply adventurers. A group of teen-agers have told the authorities that they want to join the French Foreign Legion."

"One 10-year-old said his parents were dead and that he might as well stay where there were oranges, bananas, ice cream and cake."

Life was no picnic anywhere in Berlin at this time -- but to escape to the West must have a glorious dream for most East Germans.

67. 6/2/17

A8 TRUMP WON'T MOVE U.S. EMBASSY TO JERUSALEM, AT LEAST FOR NOW

What split-second choreography!

" ... as he promised during last year's campaign ... disappointing many Israel supporters."

" ... Netanyahu ... offered only modest regret for the decision publicly. 'Though Israel is disappointed that the embassy will not move at this time, we appreciate today's expression of President Trump's friendship to Israel and his commitment to moving the embassy in the future'."

Checklist time:

1. China a currency manipulator -- reversed and check;
2. Lift Russian sanctions -- reversed and (whew, almost got caught there!) check;
3. NATO is obsolete -- reversed (just in time) and check;
4. Rip up the Iran agreement -- nah better not -- check; and
5. Bomb Syria (even though I had said not to earlier); check

The actual directions for all this fancy dancing came about years ago:

"In 1995, Congress passed a law requiring the embassy to be moved to Jerusalem by 1999 or else the State Department's building budget would be cut in half. But lawmakers [check out this freaky dance!] allowed the president to waive the law for six months, so every six months since 1999, Mr. Clinton, Mr. Bush, Mr. Obama and now Mr. Trump have signed such waivers."

"You know I'm not a person who breaks promises."

C6 CONSCIENCE IN WARTIME, AND ITS UTTER LACK

" ... Mr. Plummer, at this stage in his career, takes evident delight in the flourishes and extravagances that seniority affords."

IOW, wow is he overacting!

"He might also have deserved a tougher, riskier, more robust movie, but on the evidence here he seems to have made the most of disappointment."

IOW, pass.

A25 TRUMP'S ACT OF GRATUITOUS DESTRUCTION

"This has nothing to do with serving America's national interest. The U.S. economy, in particular, would do just fine under the Paris accord. This isn't about nationalism; mainly, it's about sheer spite."

"Much of today's right seems driven above all by animus toward liberals rather than specific issues. If liberals are for it, they're against it. If liberals hate it, it's good. Add to this the anti-intellectualism of the G.O.P. base, for whom scientific consensus on an issue is a minus, not a plus, with extra bonus points for undermining anything associated with President Barack Obama.

And if all this sounds too petty and vindictive to be the basis for momentous policy decisions, consider the character of the man in the White House. Need I say more?"

we sure got 'em good this time, dint we boss?

B6 HIGH TIMES IS SOLD FOR $70 MILLION TO A GROUP THAT INCLUDES A SON OF BOB MARLEY

"Whereas Playboy centerfolds displayed buxom women, High Times centerfolds displayed beautiful buds."

A thing of beauty:

"More than 20 percent of Americans now live in states where marijuana use is legal."

A22 NOISE'S USE AS A POLICE WEAPON COMES UNDER SCRUTINY

"That night, the police used a model called the 100X to emit a series of sharp, piercing beeps directed at people who in some cases were less than 10 feet away. Soon afterward, six of those who were nearby at the time and said they had developed migraine headaches, sinus pain, dizziness, facial pressure and ringing in their ears filed a lawsuit challenging the police's use of the device."

"Judge Sweet's finding that the plaintiffs had a 'cognizable claim' that their 14th Amendment rights had been violated, by an excessive use of force, means that their suit against the city and two members of the Police Department's Disorder Control Unit can proceed."

Yeah, make someone deaf -- I think that qualifies as a major violation of the 14th.

A1 WIN FOR ISOLATIONISTS; CONDEMNATION IS WIDESPREAD

Seriously, where to start?

"'I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris,' the president said."

Leave my hometown out of this! You won Pennsylvania in those red, racist areas -- not the bright blue Burgh! You represent very few of us!

"'At what point do they start laughing at us as a country?' Mr. Trump said. 'We don't want other leaders and other countries laughing at us anymore. And they won't be'."

Ah, Mr. President -- except for one country in Central America and one in the Middle East, every country on earth has milk coming out of their noses, that's how hard they're laughing!

At two separate points in Michael Shear's excellent article, we encounter a single, shattering economic conclusion -- one which has nothing to do with Trump's "America First" argument:

" ... the decision would ultimately harm the economy by ceding the jobs of the future in clean energy and technology to overseas competitors."

And later, we get a quote from President Obama:

"'The nations that remain in the Paris agreement will be the nations that reap the benefits in jobs and industries created'."

"Scores of staff members lined the sides of the Rose Garden as a military band played soft jazz."

Yikes.

Al Gore: "It undermines America's standing in the world and threatens to damage humanity's ability to solve the climate crisis in time."

"The mayor of Pittsburgh, Bill Peduto, responded on Twitter, 'I can assure you that we will follow the guidelines of the Paris Agreement for our people, our economy & future'."

(We are in grave) JEOPARDY question:

The answer is: Nicaragua and Syria.

B2 A PROVEN WAY TO WIN IN BUSINESS; HAVE A DAUGHTER, HIRE WOMEN

"[M]ale lawmakers, judges and corporate executives with daughters are more likely to support gender equity and policies that benefit women."

"[It was] found in a previous study that judges, particularly Republican ones, were more likely to vote in favor of women on issues like sex discrimination if they had daughters."

"Ivanka Trump ... has encouraged her father to include a paid parental leave policy in his new White House budget."

Yeah, that'll fly.

A19 FROM CHEAP SEATS ON EARTH, SENSING A TINY ECHO OF A TUMULTUOUS SPECTACLE



"The void is rocking and rolling with invisible cataclysms."

I've read this article four times this morning. I cannot claim to understand all the science -- but it does fire up one's imagination!

"Astronomers said Thursday that they had felt space-time vibrations known as gravitational waves from the merger of a pair of mammoth black holes resulting in a pit of infinitely deep darkness weighing as much as 49 suns, some 3 billion light-years from here."

"It validated Einstein's longstanding prediction that space-time can shake like a bowlful of jelly when massive object swings their weight around ..."

Here's the part that strains my brain ... but I'll quote it in full and hopefully my brother, or some other smart person, will explain it to me!

"A black hole 19 times the mass of the sun and another black hole 31 times the sun's mass, married to make a single hole of 49 solar masses. During the last frantic moments of the merger, they were shedding more energy in the form of gravitational waves than all the stars in the observable universe.

After a journey lasting 3 billion years, that is to say, a quarter of the age of the universe, those waves started jiggling LIGO's mirrors back and forth by a fraction of an atomic diameter 20 times a second. the pitch rose to 180 cycles per second in about a tenth of a second before cutting off.

Upon further analysis the signal proved to be a perfect chirp, as predicted by Einstein's equations."

Does this mean that Einstein invented Twitter?

C1 A HERO FOR OUR TIMES

"Must we endure another dose of the grandiose self-pity and authoritarian belligerence that have characterized the DC-Warner Bros. synergy in the 'Dark Knight' era? (This is the cue for unhinged fans to come @ me on Twitter and accuse me of being a shill for Marvel and Disney. The rest of you are invited to keep reading.)"

At first, I couldn't decide which to do. So I kept on reading.

"It feels less like yet another installment in an endless sequence of apocalyptic merchandising opportunities than like ... what's the word I'm looking for? A movie. A pretty good one, too."

"Unlike most of her male counterparts, its heroine is not trying to exorcise inner demons or work out messiah issues. She wants to function freely in the world, to help out when needed and to be respected for her abilities. No wonder she encounters so much resistance."

Running time: 2:21. Directed by Patty Jenkins.

C11 AMERICAN RESISTER

"Far from being a recluse, Thoreau spent much of his time with people, often seeking them out. He had problems with some: with cocksure authorities; with self-promoters (a brief stint in Manhattan trying to break into publishing was a disaster); and with uptight members of the Concord bourgeoisie."

IOW, with most people.

He spent a night in jail in 1846 for "refusing to pay taxes to a slavery-supporting government."

The lock and key from his jail cell are one of the show's exhibits.

TIME MACHINE
June 2, 1970
47 years ago

Page 12 ISRAELIS SOBERLY OPTIMISTIC BUT DON'T FEEL PEACE IS NEAR

"The chances for peace in the Middle East appear more remote than ever three years after the six-day Arab-Israeli war."

And 47 years later ...

Page 24 SCHULTZ ORDERS A "WASHINGTON PLAN" FOR MINORITIES

"Secretary of Labor George P. Shultz ordered into effect today a "Washington Plan" that would require all contractors with Federal jobs in the nation's capital to make "good faith" attempts to increase minority hiring on all their projects."

This from a conservative Republican administration ...

Page 1 MRS. SMITH WARNS OF REPRESSION

"'Extremism bent upon polarization of our people is increasingly forcing upon the American people the narrow choice between anarchy and repression,' the Senator warned. 'And make no mistake about it, if that narrow choice has to be made, the American people, even if with reluctance and misgiving, will choose repression'."

Right on, Maggie ...

66. 6/1/17

A1 TRUMP WEIGHS REVIVING CURBS ON CUBA TRIPS

"President Trump* is considering reversing major pieces of the Obama administration's opening with Cuba and reinstating limits on travel and commerce, citing human rights abuses by the Castro government as justification for a more punitive approach."

May 19th article

"Mr. Trump's apparent lack of interest in human rights also suggests that he is unlikely to complain about the justice system or the limited rights of Saudi women."

But all of a sudden, it's a huge issue vis-à-vis Cuba.

C5 SOMETHING NEW, BUT A LOT BORROWED, TOO

"There isn't a flicker of musical edge on this album ..."

Are you fucking kidding me?Jeeeeeezus Christ! Jeeeeeeezus Christ!

C5 A BIG, NEW VOICE, PERFECT FOR POP BANGERS

"When she was 11, Ms. Lipa and her family moved to Pristina, the capital of Kosovo. But Ms. Lipa wanted to be a pop singer, and at 15 she persuaded her parents to let her return to London."

That's one persuasive 15-year-old!

"[H]er father, Dukagjin Lipa, is a rock musician ..."

That explains it.

The song she sang on The Tonight Show -- "Scared to Be Lonely" -- was interesting enough. I particularly enjoyed the few short sections where her voice drops out, and some magical effects lift the music above the mundane.

A22 OH DEAR. THE TRUMPS KEEP MULTIPLYING.

Gail, you make me laugh.

"The kids are not alright.

Let's see now. Donald Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is under investigation for weird cloak-and-daggerish meetings with the Russians. Ivanka just took a bunch of money from the Saudis for her favorite charity. Eric and Don Jr. are traveling the world to promote Trump hotels and golf courses while being looked after by the Secret Service on our dime.

... Who's your favorite mini-Trump? I'm sort of attached to Eric, the one who compared waterboarding to a fraternity hazing.

Don Jr. was recently off shooting prairie dogs during their breeding season."

Except it's not funny.

A9 THE CLIMATE DEAL, AND WHAT A U.S. DEPARTURE WOULD MEAN

"The rest of the world will have a lot of heavy lifting ahead of it: Current pledges, when added up, put the planet on pace to warm 3 degrees Celsius or more above preindustrial levels, an outcome with a far greater risk of destabilizing ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, higher levels of sea-level rise, more destructive heat waves and droughts, and the loss of vital ecosystems like coral reefs."

And I keep seeing this.

D1 PARDON MY SWEAT, PASS THE BORSCHT

"Sweat."

"A 'kvetch und shvitz'."

Sounds inviting. Except for the food.

A15 TRUMP'S "COVFEFE" TWEET UNITES U.S. IN CONFUSION

"And on the 132nd day, just after midnight, President Trump had at last delivered the nation to something approaching unity -- in bewilderment, if nothing else.

The state of our union was ... covfefe."

@Diane7A wins the prize:

"'Of course #covfefe is a real word ... it was coined during the Bowling Green Massacre.'"

B1 HOW TWITTER IS BEING GAMED TO FEED MISINFORMATION

Farhad Manjoo admits that Twitter is his "daily addiction." So I'm just gonna let fly some great quotes from his article:

"The service is insidery and clubby. It exacerbates groupthink. It prizes pundit-ready quips over substantive debate, and it tends to elevate the silly over the serious ... this week it was captivated by 'covfefe,' which was essentially a brouhaha over a typo."

Brouhaha?
Hahaha.

"One way to think of today's disinformation ecosystem is to picture it as a kind of gastrointestinal tract."

He then describes the intake-outtake procedure, analogizing Twitter to the digestive system.

"Unlike Facebook, which requires people to use their real names, Twitter offers users essentially full anonymity."

And there go the bots ...

"The biggest prize is to get on Twitter's Trending Topics list, which is often used as an assignment sheet for the rest of the internet."

"[T]he more I spoke to experts, the more convinced I became that propaganda bots on Twitter might be a growing and terrifying scourge on democracy."

Not to mention all the covfefe ...

"'If you can make something trend, you can almost make it come true,' said Renee DiResta, a technologist who studies bots.

And if that's the case, why believe anything?"

A4 U.S. BEGINS ARMING SYRIAN KURDS FOR ASSAULT ON RAQQA

"The United States has started arming Syrian Kurds with heavy machine guns, antitank weapons and other arms, a critical step in preparing a pivotal part of the force that will carry out the final assault on the Islamic State's de facto capital of Raqqa, Pentagon officials said.

The Turkish government has long insisted that the Kurdish militia is closely linked to the Kurdistan Workers' Party, a separatist group. That group is listed by Turkey, the United States and Europe as a terrorist organization."

All Trump cares about is fulfilling his promise to "wipe out" ISIS; surely he covfefes his path to a second term (God forbid) -- and who cares what kind of thugs he has to hire along the way to get the job done.

A8 AS WORLD WAITS, TRUMP VOWS DECISION ON PARIS ACCORD "VERY SOON"

About two hours from now, our stupid stupid president will begin the Prexit from Paris -- perhaps one of the most monumentally catastrophic decisions ever to be made with regard to life on our fragile little planet.

I guess the best we can really hope for is that we will not have passed the point of no return by the time we get a sane president again.

awesome graphic

little garden planet / oasis in space

A15 OUTRAGE LEADS CNN TO FIRE COMEDIAN

See ya, Kath. Yes you made me laugh the first few New Years ... but Anderson -- dude -- you can do much better!

A23 SPITTING IN THE EYE OF HATRED

Kristof at his best.

"America may seem leaderless, with nastiness and bullying ascendant, but the best of our nation materialized during a moral crisis on a commuter train in Portland, Ore."

"A white man riding on that train on Friday began shouting anti-Muslim insults at a black 16-year-old girl and her 17-year-old friend wearing a hijab. One can imagine people pretending not to hear and staring fiercely down at their phones; instead, three brave passengers stepped forward to protect the girls."

"We don't know if the murderer on the Portland train felt empowered to scream at a Muslim girl because of Trump's own past Islamophobic rants, any more than we can be sure that Trump's denunciation of reporters led a Montana candidate to body-slam a journalist. But when a president incites hatred, civilization winces."

"After coming out of surgery, weak but indomitable, [Micah] Fletcher wrote a poem that offers us guidance. According to The Oregonian, it read in part:

I, am alive.
I spat in the eye of hate and lived.
This is what we must do for one another
We must live for one another."

And his name is Micah! Chapter 6, Verse 8:

He has told you, O man, what is good,
And what the LORD requires of you:
Only to do justice
And to love goodness,
And to walk humbly with your God

TIME MACHINE
June 1, 1915
102 years ago

Page 1 GERMANY THINKS REPLY COMPLETE

"'Time will pass and the opportunity will be given for cooler consideration of the Lusitania case. The cries of horror over American women and children will die down and I hope the views of peaceful neutral persons will gain the upper hand'."

"The German Government ... has replied in all calmness."

It would be nearly two more years until the U.S. declared war on Germany.

Page 14 FOR GERMAN CONSUMPTION

" ... transformed from a race worthy of the world's esteem and admiration into a people who stand apart from other nations, distrusted and feared, disturbers of the peace, a menace to the general security, and now pursuing their ends by the hideous atrocities perpetrated in Belgium and France, by deeds of monstrous inhumanity like the destruction of the Lusitania. Their ideals have been abased, their intellectual development from the high and noble things of life, while their imperial master and those about him have taught them to centre all their thoughts and all their energies upon preparation for war, the creation of an unconquerable force, adequate for defense against all the world, or it may be for establishing dominion over all the world ..."

It would take the coming world war and then another to change this horribly ugly 1915 reality.

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