Two stories about Americans who fled in search of better lives.
While millions of people have come to America to make a fresh start, sometimes the flow is in the other direction.
The Nuclear Family Was a Mistake
While politicians and pundits say we need to preserve the American nuclear family, it’s extended families that have held society together and supported individuals for generations.
David Brooks digs deep into history and anthropology, and describes how people today are building families that aren’t related by birth. Which turns out to be even older than what we usually think of as extended families
When a popular genre writer dies, should their characters die with them?
After mystery writer Robert B. Parker’s unexpected death in 2010, his family and estate hired a Southerner, Ace Atkins, to continue writing novels featuring Parker’s Boston detective, Spenser
To cynics, the decision to carry on Parker’s novels appeared unseemly or, even worse, an act of literary grave robbing that threatened the author’s reputation. But those people didn’t know Robert B. Parker, a man who, when asked how his books would be viewed in 50 years, replied: “Don’t know, don’t care.” He was proud of his work, but he mainly saw writing as a means of providing a comfortable life for his family.
Most of the environmental impact comes from manufacture, rather than disposal, say skeptics of the bans.
Nicole Najafi went on a date with every Democratic Presidential candidate so you don’t have to. Funny.
Robin Williams, 1980. He doesn’t look bad actually.
https://reddit.com/r/OldSchoolCool/comments/f7mam6/robin_williams_in_1980_always_a_good_sport/
The presidential election is a grudge match between three cranky 70-something New Yorkers.
Former California Republican congressman Dana Rohrabacher confirmed he offered Julian Assange a pardon from Trump in exchange for proof that Russia didn’t hack the Democratic National Committee’s email.
Rohrabacher wanted to pin the crime on Clinton staffer Seth Rich, who has been the focus of crazy conspiracy theories since he was murdered on the street in a mugging gone bad.
“Big Tits Potato Chips 10 ₵” - This is a 1930s era wax paper potato chip bag from Dunn, North Carolina. Big Tits was the nickname of Titus Tart, one of the owners in the Tart-Chestnut Co. The image is that of Mr. Tart.
Some Staples stores in Boston are getting podcast studios
Great idea and/or sign of the impending apocalypse.
Making coffee with Aeropress, according to inventor Alan Adler
Aeropress inventor Alan Adler demonstrates making three cups of coffee at once: YouTube
I tried something like this technique this morning. I have three cups of coffee a day and I make it all at once in the morning. Previously I’d done it in two pressings, but this technique works for a single pressing.
The taste was a little strong and one-dimensional; I need to work on that. I used an espresso grind, the finest our grinder would do. Maybe a coarser grind?
Adler’s single-serving method: YouTube
And tips from Adler: YouTube
I got a couple of ideas from this, including: Press down just by resting the weight of your arm on the plunger, to keep from applying too much force. Also, a nifty way to control the temperature of hot water when you don’t have a regulated kettle.
One-day Friends-themed pop-up brunch restaurant is coming to San Diego.
No one told me brunch was going to be this way.
“Then during the third reconciliation of the last of the Meketrex supplicants, they chose a new form for him, that of a giant Sloar! Many Shubs and Zulls knew what it was to be roasted in the depths of a Sloar that day, I can tell you.”
There is no Dana. Only Zuul. Via
Ramesses: The First Arab Car Via
Three views of a sleeping cat.
If I had a dime for every time I went to the grocery store and forgot to bring reusable grocery bags, I would have a big pile of dimes. Instead I have spent a lot of dimes, and we have a big pile of reusable grocery bags at home
After a drunken slip of the tongue, Steve Marsh and his siblings discover a secret their mother has been keeping for almost 40 years. Now, Steve wants to help his mom resolve the matter. The Marshes - Heavyweight
A new "I, Claudius" podcast
John Hodgman, Elliott Kalan and Jordan Kauwling have launched a podcast about “I, Claudius”. Special guests will include Mike Duncan, host and author of the excellent History of Rome podcast, as well as one of the stars of “I, Claudius,” a young guy with a full head of hair named Patrick Stewart.
Whatever became of Stewart? Did he ever do anything else after “I, Claudius?”
The name of the podcast is “I, Podivs." Fun so far!
This silly little $6.50 plastic gadget makes walking the dog more comfortable
It’s called the Urban Pets Hands Free Dog Poop Bag Holder Waste Knot. It’s a clip that you attach to the handle of the leash, with hooks from which you can hang a full dog-poop bag, after you’ve picked up after the dog. So now you don’t have to carry the full bag in your hand when walking. Easily holds two bags – will probably hold three if the dog is being extra-productive that day, although I haven’t tried.
This is, like, the best $6.50 thing I’ve ever bought.
It’s the little things, amirite?
A California entrepreneur plans a limited production run of the iconic 80s sportscar, the DeLorean
And they’ve also restored the “Back to the Future” prop.
The Original Back to the Future DeLorean DMC-12, Lovingly Restored to “Better Than New Condition
The story of DeLorean is, in some ways, the story of the excess and enthusiasm of the 80s. Fired from GM, auto exec John DeLorean (“a rock star among suits”) started his own company with the aim of building a sports car like no other. He began production in Northern Ireland, with grants from the British government, in 1980. Financing soon dried up after cost overruns raised prices and the cars’ many notorious issues—such as those gull-wing doors failing to open—became apparent. DeLorean made a $24 million cocaine deal with what turned out to be an undercover FBI agent to keep the company afloat. Though he was acquitted of the charges, the company lay in ruins.
1849 guide to the brothels and prostitutes of Philadelphia.
A Vintage Guide to the ‘Gay Houses’, Brothels, and ‘Ladies of Pleasure’ in 1840’s Philadelphia
“I, Claudius” rewatch, episode 2: I really appreciate the subtle, restrained acting.
40% of my home office.
If you’re going to take the dog for a random 3 mile walk around a nearby neighborhood, just to see the area you live in and for a change of routine, you should definitely carefully mark where you parked.
I know that now.
Not for the first time, my barber was unfamiliar with men with copious body hair. Dude, just clipping a little below the collar line is fine – I’m not here for the full “40-year-old Virgin.”
Sometime after I turned 40 I stopped enjoying fiction as much as I used to. I think it’s been a bit more than a year since I read a novel I really LOVED.
Do you find that’s true for you?
This defense of Bloomberg’s appalling defense of redlining is bullshit. Redlining isn’t denying credit on the basis of financial risk. It’s denying credit to black people, regardless of their ability to repay the loan.
There are two generations of Mexican luchador wrestlers named “Dr. Wagner.” How did I not know this?
The Age of Decadence. The real story of the West in the 21st century is one of stalemate and stagnation.
Holiday-Travel Twitter Is the Best Form of Social Media. Play-by-plays from airports and bus rides offer random, unpolished personal moments.
“One might suppose that the popular prejudice against vaccination had died out by this time,” one writer complains. It sounds like a lament from today, but in fact, it’s from 1875."
The story about how Mike "The Monkees" Nesmith's mother invented liquid paper is surprisingly interesting.
She was a secretary. She saw a need and saw that the market would be women, because secretaries were women.
She priced the product low enough so that secretaries could buy it out of the discretionary fund they had for office supplies, without needing approval from a man.
And she marketed the product in a bottle that looked like nail polish, so her customers would already be familiar with using it before they even tried it.
Smart!
Who let “Who Let the Dogs Out” Out?
99% Invisible: The world’s greatest expert on the song “Who Let the Dogs Out” finds it surprisingly difficult to answer the question of who wrote the song.
San Diego freelance writer Beth Demmon says California Assembly Bill 5, which regulates contract workers, threatens her livelihood. She says she’s taken an immediate income hit upwards of 25% due to the law.
Tinder's Most Notorious Men
The users who reappear after countless left swipes have become modern urban legends.
Like mayors and famous bodega cats, they are both hyper-local and larger than life."
The Doc nails it. The sole issue for Democratic voters in the Presidential election is “make the bad man go away.” Everything else is a distraction.
However, things get complicated because for many Democrats, Bloomberg and/or Sanders are as bad as the Bad Man.
And Warren, Mayor Pete and Uncle Joe are, for many voters, ALMOST as toxic as the Bad Man. Those voters will hold their noses and vote for any of those three candidates if they have to. But that speaks to low voter turnout – toxic for Dems.
Overall, I like the Democrats' odds. But we’re going to have to work hard to win.
Good to know the ‘doomsday asteroid’ is not going to destroy the Earth Saturday, because I’m not going to be done reading Mary Robinette Kowal’s “Calculating Stars” by then.
Dave Winer makes the case for Bloomberg: More than a candidate for president.
I’m reserving judgment. I expect I’ll vote for Warren in the primary, assuming she’s still in the race, but other than that I don’t expect to support a candidate until the convention. And then I’ll support whichever Democrat wins.
Until a month ago I would have said “except maybe Bloomberg.” But I like the way he’s going after Trump. I still have strong reservations about Bloomberg, though.
Molly Ringwald revisits “The Breakfast Club” and the other 80s teen movies that made her a star. The films were often homophobic, misogynistic and racist but they inspired women, LGBTQ people and African-Americans with their depictions of kids who were estranged from the world they lived in.
The US is charging Huawei with racketeering
The DoJ alleges that Huawei and a number of its affiliates used confidential agreements with American companies over the past two decades to access the trade secrets of those companies, only to then misappropriate that intellectual property and use it to fund Huawei’s business.
As part of his research into Trump’s $1+B disinformation campaign, journalist McKay Coppins “tried to live in the same information world as Trump supporters so that he’d receive the same disinformation supporters did.”
He said he ended up believing everything and nothing. Rumors, lies and reported journalism ended up seeming roughly equal in credibility, even though he was following the impeachment hearings closely and could see for himself that Trump supporters were lying about what transpired there.
This is exactly how censorship works in autocratic regimes nowadays, Coppins notes – no need to shut down opposition journalism; better to just flood the information channels with bullshit.
Journalist Details ‘Brazen Ways’ Trump Will Use His Power To Get Reelected - Fresh Air
A brief history of the "I, Claudius" TV series
The TV production had a lot of problems, but Robert Graves, who wrote the 1930s novels on which the series is based, had faith:
“I’ve communed with Claudius,” he said at the time, “and he reassured me that this would be a great success.”
The series launched Derek Jacobi’s career.
“I owe ‘Claudius’ so much on both sides of the Atlantic,” Mr. Jacobi said in a telephone interview. “If he has haunted me, it’s been a beneficent ghost.”…
The durability of “I, Claudius” began with Graves’s books. Cast as the secret memoirs of Claudius himself, they were grounded in exhaustive scholarship but imbued with a novelist’s imagination. They had plenty of skulduggery, perversion and other delectable malfeasance, set against the marble majesty of Roman antiquity.
The TV version, however, came close to missing the mark. “It was so badly received in its first two weeks,” recalled Sian Phillips, who played the empress Livia, “because it was so different.”
That difference lay in the series’s down-to-earth treatment of epic material. Despite its imperial setting “I, Claudius” was a small studio effort devoid of huge sets and sprawling battle scenes.
In whittling down Graves’s tomes (which total some 1,000 pages in paperback) to a little over 11 hours of television, the scriptwriter Jack Pulman, who died in 1979, effectively rendered them as a soap opera, emphasizing the dysfunctional relations inherent in any extended clan. At various points he called his teleplay a Jewish family comedy and a treatment of a Mafia dynasty.
The TV show used natural language, rather than the high prose that was common in previous Roman stories. Scenes were small. The action encompassed huge battles and riots sweeping the city, but we don’t see those. We just see and hear a few people talking about them.
Phillips, who played the ruthless villain Livia, had difficulty finding her character, but finally, director Herbert Wise told her to just ham it up.
‘Just be evil. The more evil you are, the funnier it is, and the more terrifying it is.’ ”
In the TV series and books, Rome is portrayed as being in decay, due to its transition from republican government to monarchy. But this is a bit of authorial fudging.
In reality, Rome peaked long after the action of the stories.
The Emperor Claudius died in AD 54. The land area of the empire peaked around 100 AD.
Prior to the empire, Rome wasn’t a republic as we think of it today. Only a very small aristocracy participated in government, and millions of people were slaves. Many historians say that the life of a Roman citizen was best in the period 100-200 AD., and Rome extended citizenship broadly to the people who lived within its borders.
Rome finally fell in 476 AD, four centuries after the action of I, Claudius. And that’s only the Western Empire. The Eastern Empire, which we now call Byzantium, continued on until it fell to the Ottomans in 1453 AD.
I Claudius seemingly influenced The Sopranos – though Sopranos creator David Chase doesn’t acknowledge it. They’re both stories about men who build empires despite being undermined by toxic, maternal women named “Livia.”
Hulu is doing gender-flipped miniseries based on “High Fidelity,” the excellent Nick Hornby novel and John Cusack movie.
If I can get used to a woman Doctor Who, I can give this miniseries a try.
“It’s a strange existence, being an autistic adult in a profession overflowing with autism mommy-ism and misinformation.” https://theaspergian.com/2020/01/30/im-dreading-april-the-trials-of-an-autistic-teacher/amp/?__twitter_impression=true
We’ve started rewatching “I Claudius.”
“I Claudius” is the story of a great empire that decays as its chief executive seizes dictatorial power while the Senate flatters him and otherwise stands idly by.
It’s nice to escape from the news into a TV fantasy now and then.
Oracle founder Larry Ellison is hosting a fundraiser for Donald Trump www.vox.com/recode/20…
Michael Bloomberg says 2015 stop and frisk comments were ‘five years ago’ and are ‘not the way that I think’ www.cnn.com/2020/02/1…
I saw these geese at Lake Murray. Ready to rumble!
Whenever cruise ships are in the news it’s never good.
I am prepared to call the 2020 presidential election: it’s going to be Amy Klobuchar.
The Democrats will be split between Sanders and Bloomberg going into the convention. Supporters of each will loathe and despise the other.
On the 60 gazillionth ballot, some desperate person will suggest Amy Klobuchar and everyone will look at each other and say actually, yes, I kind of like her.
And she will easily trounce Trump, who will prove to be too chickenshit to stage a coup d’état. Trump’s supporters will crawl back to their basements and conspiracy theories. And a new golden age for America will dawn.
Fresh Air: Michael Pollan Explains Caffeine Addiction & Withdrawal
As part of the research for a new audiobook about caffeine, author Michael “Omnivore’s Dilemma” Pollan gave up caffeine cold turkey for three months. Now that’s sacrificing for the craft!
‘Omnivore’s Dilemma’ author Michael Pollan talks about his new audiobook, ‘Caffeine: How Coffee and Tea Created the Modern World.’ He describes caffeine as the world’s most widely-used psychoactive drug. “Here’s a drug we use every day. … We never think about it as a drug or an addiction, but that’s exactly what it is,” Pollan says. “I thought, why not explore that relationship?”
Affluent parents are giving their children growth hormones, to keep the kids from growing up short.
Seems like a bad idea. There’s nothing medically wrong with the kids, and studies have shown that short people’s lives are no less satisfying and happy than anybody else.
Being short just isn’t a disability to be corrected. And we don’t know what the long-term effects of the treatments might be.
I’m 5'9" tall – precisely average.
Friend of Dorothy: How did Judy Garland become a gay icon? slate.com/podcasts/…
A new wave of national conservatives are gaining power and wealth by claiming to be persecuted minorities and spreading easily fact-checked lies about liberalism.
Like smartphone users today, medieval monks wrestled with distraction.
Merle Oberon, a star actress of Hollywood’s golden age, was biracial, passing as white, and the product of two generations of rape. She was born in Bombay to a 12-year-old girl who was raped by an Englishman. Oberon’s mother was herself the product of rape.
Teens are scrambling their identities on Instagram, so they can use the service without divulging personal information.
Reset: art19.com/shows/res…
A brief history of the Apple Newton: 20 years ahead of its time, and still has a small but loyal fan base who continue to use it.
Anybody tried posting automatically from Flickr to micro.blog? Should be do-able, right – last I checked, Flickr produces RSS feeds.
I’d like there to be some differentiation between Flickr and other images. I post a lot of found images from the Internet, as well as a few of my own photos, and I like differentiating the two.
Maybe pipe Flickr through IFTTT.com first? Hmmmmm……
Meet the Unlikely Hero Saving California’s Oldest Weekly Paper: I love this story so, so much
“High in the Sierra, Downieville, Calif., was about to become the latest American community to lose its newspaper. In stepped Carl Butz, a 71-year-old retiree.”
DOWNIEVILLE, Calif. — The night before his first deadline, Carl Butz, California’s newest newspaper owner, was digging into a bowl of beef stew at the Two Rivers Café, the only restaurant open in town.
“Tomorrow I have to fill the paper,” he said with only mild anxiety. “The question is, will it be a four-page paper or a six-page paper?”
At 71, Mr. Butz is trim, with wire-rimmed glasses and a close-cropped silver beard, and he dresses in flannel shirts and cargo pants. Since his retirement and his wife’s death in 2017, he considered traveling — to England or Latvia, or riding the Trans-Siberian Railway. But here he was, a freshly minted newspaper proprietor, having stepped in at the beginning of the year to save The Mountain Messenger, California’s oldest weekly newspaper, from extinction.
The Messenger was founded in 1853. Its most famous scribe was Mark Twain, who once wrote a few stories — with a hangover, the legend goes — while hiding out here from the law.
An Oklahoma University journalism professor likened the phrase "OK Boomer" to the N-word. This is such a weird story
An OU professor in the Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication used a racial slur during a class Tuesday morning, according to multiple students present in the class….
Gade was discussing the changes in journalism related to technology and social media and made the point that journalism should stick to its more traditional roots, according to multiple students in the class.
Gade is right. With rumors and misinformation spreading like a pandemic, it’s more important than ever for journalism to get its facts right and tell the audience what’s actually going on.
Gade then called on a student who said journalists have to keep up with the younger generations as they continue to change
The student is right too! Journalism needs to report on younger people and the issues they care about. And journalism needs to deliver news through the channels that young people care about – Twitter, Instagram, TikTok and whatever comes next. (This does, however, present business challenges that journalism needs to address.)
Gade said the student’s comment was the equivalent of saying “OK, boomer” to him.
Wait, what? No it’s not.
Maybe the professor was kidding.
The class broke into light laughter….
OK, he was kidding.
… but was interrupted by Gade’s next comment.
“Calling someone a boomer is like calling someone a n—–,” Gade said.
Oh noooooooooo.
Calling someone a boomer is not the equivalent of using the N-word. “Boomer” is a neutral phrase used to describe an American born between 1946 and 1964.
MWC 2020 canceled over coronavirus health concerns
Mobile World Congress is the biggest telco conference of the year, worldwide. Maybe there’s a bigger one in China but if there is I don’t know about it.
This is a prudent measure in the face of a potential health crisis. It’s not a good idea for 100K+ people from all over the world to fly to a central location, spend a week sneezing on each other in an enclosed conference center, with their immune systems compromised due to short-sleeping, and then disperse to their homes all over the world again.
Shoot, half the time I go to MWC I come home with a bad cold or the flu, and that’s in years without coronavirus. (Not last year though. Last year I’m pretty sure it was food poisoning. 72 hours of not fun!).
The biggest telco vendors and their customers had already pulled out of the show so this next step is not surprising.
This morning I updated <mitchwagner.com> and my LinkedIn profile. They look snappy.
Matthew Yglesias: Mainstream Democrats shouldn't be freaking out about Sanders
Sanders' rhetoric is revolutionary but his record shows he’s willing to make deals for incremental change.
And some of the views he has that Washington castigates as crazy – like winding down American hegemony and being tougher on Israel – make sense and are downright mainstream once you get out of the Beltway bubble.
I saw this excellent collection of stickers on a car at Lake Murray
I saw this shortcut between two streets while walking yesterday.
Former CNBC anchor Michelle Caruso-Cabrera will challenge Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in House Democratic primary
Two Latinas going head to head.
Actor Jussie Smollett is being indicted for allegedly falsifying claims he was assaulted by Trump supporters. www.fox32chicago.com/news/juss…