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Thank you to everyone who has been contributing links to articles & other content in the Comments section of each day's "Conversation." If you're missing the comments, you're missing some vital links.

The Ledes

Saturday, May 18, 2024

Washington Post: “Paul D. Parkman, a scientist who in the 1960s played a central role in identifying the rubella virus and developing a vaccine to combat it, breakthroughs that have eliminated from much of the world a disease that can cause catastrophic birth defects and fetal death, died May 7 at his home in Auburn, N.Y. He was 91.”

New York Times: “Dabney Coleman, an award-winning television and movie actor best known for his over-the-top portrayals of garrulous, egomaniacal characters, died on Thursday at his home in Santa Monica, Calif. He was 92.”

The Wires
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The Ledes

Friday, May 17, 2024

AP: “Fast-moving thunderstorms pummeled southeastern Texas for the second time this month, killing at least four people, blowing out windows in high-rise buildings, downing trees and knocking out power to more than 900,000 homes and businesses in the Houston area.”

Public Service Announcement

The Washington Post offers tips on how to keep your EV battery running in frigid temperatures. The link at the end of this graf is supposed to be a "gift link" (from me, Marie Burns, the giftor!), meaning that non-subscribers can read the article. Hope it works: https://wapo.st/3u8Z705

Marie: BTW, if you think our government sucks, I invite you to watch the PBS special "The Real story of Mr Bates vs the Post Office," about how the British post office falsely accused hundreds, or perhaps thousands, of subpostmasters of theft and fraud, succeeded in obtaining convictions and jail time, and essentially stole tens of thousands of pounds from some of them. Oh, and lied about it all. A dramatization of the story appeared as a four-part "Masterpiece Theater," which you still may be able to pick it up on your local PBS station. Otherwise, you can catch it here (for now). Just hope this does give our own Postmaster General Extraordinaire Louis DeJoy any ideas.

The Mysterious Roman Dodecahedron. Washington Post: A “group of amateur archaeologists sift[ing] through ... an ancient Roman pit in eastern England [found] ... a Roman dodecahedron, likely to have been placed there 1,700 years earlier.... Each of its pentagon-shaped faces is punctuated by a hole, varying in size, and each of its 20 corners is accented by a semi-spherical knob.” Archaeologists don't know what the Romans used these small dodecahedrons for but the best guess is that they have some religious significance.

"Countless studies have shown that people who spend less time in nature die younger and suffer higher rates of mental and physical ailments." So this Washington Post page allows you to check your own area to see how good your access to nature is.

Marie: If you don't like birthing stories, don't watch this video. But I thought it was pretty sweet -- and funny:

If you like Larry David, you may find this interview enjoyable:


Tracy Chapman & Luke Combs at the 2024 Grammy Awards. Allison Hope comments in a CNN opinion piece:

~~~ Here's Chapman singing "Fast Car" at the Oakland Coliseum in December 1988. ~~~

~~~ Here's the full 2024 Grammy winner's list, via CBS.

He Shot the Messenger. Washington Post: “The Messenger is shutting down immediately, the news site’s founder told employees in an email Wednesday, marking the abrupt demise of one of the stranger and more expensive recent experiments in digital media. In his email, Jimmy Finkelstein said he was 'personally devastated' to announce that he had failed in a last-ditch effort to raise more money for the site, saying that he had been fundraising as recently as the night before. Finkelstein said the site, which launched last year with outsize ambitions and a mammoth $50 million budget, would close 'effective immediately.' The New York Times first reported the site’s closure late Wednesday afternoon, appearing to catch many staffers off-guard, including editor in chief Dan Wakeford. As employees read the news story, the internal work chat service Slack erupted in what one employee called 'pandemonium.'... Minutes later, as staffers read Finkelstein’s email, its message was underscored as they were forcibly logged out of their Slack accounts. Former Messenger reporter Jim LaPorta posted on social media that employees would not receive health care or severance.”

Contact Marie

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Page Links
Saturday
Mar262016

Yiddish Curses For Jews Who Vote Republican

Ophelia M. passed along the following in Saturday's Comments. She got it from a friend, which is one of the ways the jokes have found their way into the light. Before republishing Ophelia's comment, I looked for the jokes' provenance. They seem to have many mothers & fathers, all of them anonymous. Paul Krugman published a few lines some while back, along with a link to others, but Krugman's "original" got disappeared. So thanks to Ophelia & all you Anonymous Wits. And Curses, Republicans! -- Constant Weader


May you be reunited in the world to come with your ancestors, who were all socialist garment workers.

May you have a large store, and have it all dismantled by vulture capitalists.

May you grow so rich that your widow’s second husband is thrilled they repealed the estate tax.

May you feast every day on chopped liver with onions, chicken soup with dumplings, baked carp with horseradish, braised meat with vegetable stew & latkes, and may every bite of it be contaminated with E. Coli, because the government gutted the E.P.A.

May you sell everything and retire to Florida just as global warming makes it uninhabitable.

May you have a rare disease and need an operation that only one surgeon in the world, the winner of the Nobel Prize for Medicine, is able to perform. And may he be unable to perform it because he doesn’t take your insurance. And may that Nobel Laureate be your son.

May your state outlaw the morning-after pill the day before your daughter returns home from the NFTY (North American Federation of Temple Youth) convention.

May your son be elected President, and may you have no idea what you did with his goddamn birth certificate.

May the state of Arizona expand their definition of 'suspected illegal immigrants' to 'anyone who doesn't hunt.'

May you live to a hundred and twenty without Social Security or Medicare.

May you grow like an onion with your head in the ground, and then may that ground be fracked.

May you make a fortune, and lose it all in one of Sheldon Adelson's casinos.

May your child give his Bar Mitzvah speech on the genius of Ayn Rand.

May your insurance company decide constipation is a pre-existing condition.

May God give you a daughter-in-law who is as kind as she is beautiful, as patient as she is rich, as wise as she is devoted: a virtuous woman in every way. And then may a ballot initiative invalidate her marriage to your Rebecca.

May the secretary you're schtupping depend on Planned Parenthood for her birth control.

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