The Last Man, an apocalyptic, dystopian science fiction novel by Mary Shelley, first published in 1826

  

"The Last Man is an 

 apocalyptic, dystopian science fiction novel by 

 Mary Shelley, first published in 1826. ;

The narrative concerns Europe in the late 21st century, 

 ravaged by the rise of a bubonic plague pandemic 

 that rapidly sweeps across the entire globe, ultimately resulting in the near-extinction of humanity. 

 It also includes discussion of the British state as a republic, for which Shelley sat in meetings of the House of Commons to gain insight to the governmental system of the Romantic era.  

The novel includes many fictive allusions to her husband Percy Bysshe Shelley,  

who drowned in a shipwreck four years before the book's publication, as well as their close friend Lord Byron, who had died two years previously."  

Introduction

'Mary Shelley states that in 1818 she discovered, in a cave near Naples, prophetic writings painted on leaves by the Cumaean Sibyl. 

 She says she has edited these writings into the narrative of a man living at the end of the 21st century,  

commencing in 2073 and concluding in 2100." 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Man   

 "In 2092, while Lionel and Adrian attempt to return their lives to normality, the plague continues to spread across Europe and the Americas.  

The appearance of a black sun causes panic throughout the world, and 

 storm surges flood coastal towns across Europe 

In France, Adrian learns the earlier emigrants have divided into factions, amongst them a fanatical religious sect led by a false messiah who claims his followers will be saved from disease. 

 Ships arrive in Ireland carrying survivors from America, who lawlessly plunder Ireland and Scotland before invading England. 

 Fearing to be the last human left on Earth, Lionel follows the Apennine Mountains to Rome, befriending a sheepdog along the way.  

A year passes without anyone else entering Rome, and Lionel resolves to leave with his dog and live the rest of his life 

 as a wanderer of the depopulated continents of Africa and Asia  

looking for other survivors. The story ends in the year 2100." 

  _____ 

"Mary's mother died 11 days after giving birth to her. 

 She was raised by her father, who provided her with a rich informal education,  

encouraging her to adhere to his own anarchist political theories. " 

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley 

 née Godwin; 30 August 1797 – 1 February 1851)  

 was an English novelist who wrote the Gothic novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus 

 (1818),  

which is considered an early example of science fiction. 

She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley.  

Her father was the political philosopher William Godwin  

and her mother was the philosopher and women's rights advocate Mary Wollstonecraft." 

_____ 

"Shelley's works often argue that cooperation and sympathy, 

 particularly as practised by women in the family, were the ways to reform civil society. 

 This view was a direct challenge 

 to the individualistic Romantic ethos promoted by Percy Shelley  

and the Enlightenment political theories articulated by her father, William Godwin." 

___ 

'On the first anniversary of Mary Shelley's death, the Shelleys opened her box-desk. Inside they found locks of her dead children's hair, a notebook she had shared with Percy Bysshe Shelley, and a copy of his poem Adonaïs with one page folded round a silk parcel containing some of his ashes and the remains of his heart." 

Greenwood, Nails Palmer

  

'Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum announced today the first identification of a Tulsa Race Massacre victim  

since the City started the physical part 

 of its 1921 Graves Investigation five years ago. 

 The identification is a man by the name of C. L. Daniel, a World War 1 U.S. Army Veteran whose next of kin’s DNA is tied with Burial 3 from the 2021 excavation at Oaklawn Cemetery.

The discovery is the first to reveal the name of a Tulsa Race Massacre victim  

outside of those previously noted in the Oklahoma Commission’s 2001 Report.  

Among those names were Reuben Everett and Eddie Lockard,  

whose headstones are the only known markers of massacre victims 

 and are located near the grave that C. L. is connected to."  

https://www.cityoftulsa.org/press-room/major-discovery-made-in-1921-graves-investigation-c-l-daniel-confirmed-as-first-victim-identified-from-city-s-yearslong-investigation/ 

 

'C.L. Daniel was a veteran who served our country in World War I, who was killed in the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, and whose family 

 did not know where he had been buried for the last 103 years - until this week,” Mayor G.T. Bynum said.  

“I want to express Tulsa’s profound gratitude to everyone who brought us to today - from the local historians and the leaders who developed the 2001 State Commission Report to our team of experts, who are pouring their hearts and minds into this search today.  

I want to thank my colleagues on the Tulsa City Council and the citizens of Tulsa for continuing to fund this search. I hope this generation of Tulsans can appreciate that you helped this family find their relative after he was missing for 103 years.”

"While the circumstances of C. L.’s death are unknown, his connection to the Tulsa Race Massacre was confirmed this week 

 when Intermountain Forensics, the laboratory assisting the City with DNA and genealogical analysis, was able to recover records from the National Archives.  

Contained in the records was the most convincing piece of evidence tying him to the Tulsa Race Massacre  

– a letter from C. L.’s family attorney written to the U.S. Veteran’s Administration on behalf of C. L.’s mother regarding C. L.’s survivor benefits."

 

"Not everything that is faced can be changed,”  

Tulsa Race Massacre Descendant Brenda Nails-Alford said.  

“But nothing can be changed until it is faced.  

Just keep living, and you’ll understand.”  

_____ 

Brenda Nails-Alford grew up knowing all about the entrepreneurial spirit of her family.

"I grew up knowing about our family businesses and of course was very proud of that," said Brenda Nails-Alford.

Her grandparents, James and Vasinora Nails, along with her great uncle Henry Nails, ran a number of businesses in Greenwood.  

They owned "Nails Brothers Shoes" – along with a dance pavilion, skating rink, and a limo and taxi service," 

Brenda says she while she was well aware of the businesses, she had no idea of her family's connection to the Tulsa Race Massacre.  

Brenda says in 2003, she was notified about a lawsuit for reparations for survivors and descendants of survivors of the massacre. That's how she found out her family had survived the atrocities in Tulsa. Brenda tells FOX23′S Naomi Keitt, the news devastated her.  

her family legacy is all over the city including a mural at Lacy Park that depicts her grandparents and 

 her aunt Dr. Cecelia Nails Palmer.

"I was always so very proud of her. I was in awe of her. I always felt like I was around a queen knowing I was around her because she was just so elegant but very very down to earth," said Brenda.

Dr. Palmer was just 2 years old when the massacre happened in 1921 and survived it with her family. 

 She went on to achieve several accomplishments including being the first black faculty member at the University of Tulsa." 

"In spite of what we go through in life, never give up. Keep moving forward.  

That is what they taught us  

and that is what we will continue to do," said Brenda.' 

"Her father described her at age 15 as "singularly bold, somewhat imperious, and active of mind. Her desire of knowledge is great, and her perseverance in everything she undertakes almost invincible." 

 

The only US president of virtue

  

"Carter won countercultural credibility when the gonzo journalist Hunter S Thompson wrote about his successful 1976 campaign against Gerald Ford. 

 Thompson said he had never heard “a sustained piece of political oratory that impressed me more” 

 than an address Carter made in 1974 that he called  

“a king-hell bastard of a speech”.

Carter reportedly caught Thompson’s attention when he cited the musician Bob Dylan for his understanding about what was right and wrong, 

 pointing to Dylan’s Maggie’s Farm, 

 among others. According to the Art Newspaper, 

 Carter counselled Dylan when he considered converting to Christianity. 

In the visual arts realm, Andy Warhol travelled to Carter’s home in tiny Plains, Georgia, in 1977 and made three portraits, including Jimmy Carter I, a photo-collage that the Carter campaign sold as a series of 50 $1,000 prints.

The Carter family, Warhol later recalled, “were very normal. We got along very well … Jimmy Carter gave me two big bags of peanuts which he signed. That made the whole trip worthwhile.” 

Robert Rauschenberg also contributed to Carter’s Inaugural Impressions, a portfolio that included representations by Roy Lichtenstein and Jamie Wyeth.  "

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/dec/30/jimmy-carter-arts  

 

"had started to view Israel’s occupation of the Palestinians as something that started in 1967 as an accident but was now becoming  

an enterprise with colonial intentions,” Berman said in his letter to Carter.

Shortly before Carter’s death, Peter Beinart, described as “the most influential liberal Zionist of his generation”, said the time had come for the former president’s critics to apologise for the 

 “shameful way that the book was received by many significant people”. 

"He was thrown under the bus by leading members of his own Democratic party,” he said.

That included Nancy Pelosi,  

who was about to become speaker of the House of Representatives. She said Carter “does not speak for the Democratic party on Israel”, aipac does. 

Carter told the Observer that he did not regret describing the occupation as apartheid.

“The word is the most accurate available to describe Palestine.  

Apartheid is when two different people live in the same land, and they are forcibly segregated, and one dominates or persecutes the other. .

That’s what’s happening in Palestine: so the word is very, very accurate. 

 It’s used widely, and every day, in Israel,” he said. 

"The Center warned that collective punishment and the murder of civilians was contrary to international law – a warning that looks prescient now that Israel’s prime minister,  

Benjamin Netanyahu, has been indicted for war crimes 

 alongside his former defence minister . 

and the Hamas military leader, Mohammed Deif.' 

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/dec/30/jimmy-carter-israel-apartheid-palestinians

 

Frankly my dear, I don't give a necktie

  

"In the 1930s, Lehman underwrote the initial public offering of the first television manufacturer, DuMont Laboratories, and helped fund the Radio Corporation of America (RCA). 

It also helped finance the rapidly growing oil industry, including the companies Halliburton and Kerr-McGee..

 In the 1950s, Lehman underwrote the IPO of Digital Equipment Corporation. 

 Later, it arranged the acquisition of Digital by Compaq." 

the firm's real shift from being a commodities house to a house of issue did not begin until 1906. 

 In that year, under Emanuel's son Philip Lehman, the firm partnered with Goldman, Sachs & Co., 

 to bring the General Cigar Co. to market,

 followed closely by Sears, Roebuck and Company. 

 Among these were F.W. Woolworth Company,  

 May Department Stores Company,  

 Gimbel Brothers, Inc., 

 R.H. Macy & Company, 

 The Studebaker Corporation, 

 the B.F. Goodrich Co., 

 and Endicott Johnson Corporation. " 

____ 

"David May was born to a Jewish family in Kaiserslautern, then located in the Kingdom of Bavaria, Germany. 

 In 1854, he immigrated with his family to the United States and settled in Cincinnati. As a young man he worked at a clothing factory, while attending night school at Cincinnati's Nelson Business College.

"After moving for health reasons to Leadville, Colorado, then undergoing a boom due to silver mining, he partnered with future brother-in-law Moses Shoenberg and opened a dry goods store in 1877.  

In 1887, he purchased another store in Denver, Colorado partnering with brothers-in-law Joseph and Louis Shoenberg[2] (the Shoenbergs would later change their name to Beaumont). 

 In 1888, he sold the Leadville store to Meyers Harris. In 1892, he expanded out of Colorado and purchased "The Famous Clothing Store" in St. Louis, Missouri and in 1898, he purchased another store in Cleveland, Ohio which he renamed the "May Company." In 1905, he moved the business headquarters to St. Louis. In 1910, the business was incorporated as "The May Department Stores Company" and began trading on the New York Stock Exchange in 1911. Also in 1911, he bought the William Bar Dry Goods Company in St. Louis and merged it with The Famous Clothing Store renaming the new entity, Famous-Barr. He continued to expand, purchasing the M. O’Neil Department Store in Akron, Ohio in 1912 and A. Hamburger & Sons in Los Angeles in 1923." 

 

"May Company went on to become one of the largest department store chains in the United States through organic growth and acquisitions. Some of the chains acquired included: Bernheim-Leader in Baltimore, Maryland; Kaufmann's in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; The Daniels & Fisher Stores Company in Denver, Colorado; Hecht's in Baltimore, Maryland; G. Fox & Co. in Hartford, Connecticut; and  

Meier & Frank in Portland, Oregon."  

____ 

'Despite Federated's long history of preserving regional nameplates, 

 its acquisition of the May Department Stores 

 Company in 2005 marked the end of those nameplates. 

 By the following year, both the Macy's and Bloomingdale's brands had replaced them nationwide. '  

'In the mid-1930s, a modern merchandising standard was set when 

 Fred Lazarus Jr. arranged garments in groups of a single size 

 with a range of style, color and price, basing the technique upon observations made in Paris.  

As well, Lazarus convinced President Franklin D. Roosevelt that 

 it would help American economy  

to change the Thanksgiving holiday  

from the last Thursday of November to the fourth Thursday,  

thus extending the Christmas shopping season.  

An act of Congress perpetuated the arrangement in 1941. Black Friday became a nationwide sensation and the most profitable day for Federated" 

On October 14, 2013, Macy's Inc. announced the decision to open most of their stores for the first time on Thanksgiving Day 2013, breaking a long-standing tradition of 155 years, and joined the ranks of retailers who created Gray Thursday the year before. 

____ 

"Lyman Bloomingdale was born on February 11, 1841 in New York City, the son of the Bavarian-born, German Jewish immigrant Benjamin Bloomingdale and Hannah Weil.  

 Lyman and his brother Joseph were trained in the retailing of ladies clothing at their father's store. Lyman Bloomingdale was educated at various public schools in New York, and also attended Smith's Collegiate Institute. 

 He served as a non-commissioned officer in the Kansas Volunteers in the Civil War." 

(Americanized form of Dutch Bloemendaal and possibly also of German and Jewish (Ashkenazic) Blumenthal . ) 

____ 

"In 1857, Aaron Meier (1831–1889) arrived in the Oregon Territory at the age of 26 and opened a 35-by-50-foot (11 m × 15 m) mercantile store at 137 Front Street in Portland, which had a population of 1,300.  

He had come to California from Bavaria during the Gold Rush, spending time as an itinerant peddler in Southern Oregon. He formed a partnership with a Mr. Mariholtz and began selling merchandise that arrived by steamer from San Francisco and 

 in the covered wagons rolling along the Oregon Trail " 

In the great flood of 1894, the street level of Meier & Frank was three feet deep in water. Customers were brought into the store in rowboats and stepped onto raised walkways to do their shopping 

Meier & Frank pioneered the concept of a "money-back guarantee", until then unheard-of in merchandising. 

The store's green delivery wagons (later its delivery trucks) were ubiquitous in Portland, with the company willing to deliver purchases of any size—even a spool of thread. 

Meanwhile, Clark Gable worked at Meier & Frank selling neckties.

The president of Meier & Frank, Julius L. Meier, was elected governor of Oregon as an independent, and served from 1931 to 1935. 

For a time, Meier & Frank reigned as the largest retail outlet west of the Mississippi and one of the largest stores in the nation in the early 1930s. When President Roosevelt closed banks country-wide, Meier & Frank took out a full-page newspaper ad with a single word: 

 "Confidence".  

Hundreds of people brought their savings to the store for safekeeping. The store canceled interest charges on all customers' credit accounts. 

During World War II, Meier & Frank supported the Allied forces: Federal officials cited the store's efforts in support of the war 1941 to 1945 as the most outstanding of any department store in the United States.  

Meier & Frank devoted all of its newspaper advertising space to bond sales; for 1,207 continuous days the back page of the first section of The Oregonian ran ads—not to sell merchandise 

 but to support the war effort.  

The lot became Pioneer Courthouse Square in 1984. 

in 1955. It had store-side parking for 1,000 cars. 

 Five years later Meier & Frank opened Oregon's second-largest department store (exceeded only by its own downtown store) in Northeast Portland in the new Lloyd Center, at the time  

the world's largest shopping center. .

The crown prince of Japan (later Emperor Akihito) joined the dignitaries attending the opening festivities"

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meier_%26_Frank  

____ 

https://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/05/27/the-landmines-in-a-good-bankbad-bank-split/  

Financing

Lehman Brothers helped finance Kerr-McGee Oil Industries, Inc. 

 Lehman Brothers was a bank that helped finance companies in a variety of industries, including oil, defense electronics, and the car rental business.  

The Lehman Brothers bankruptcy in 2008 was the largest in U.S. history.  

Lehman Brothers acted as a financial advisor for Anadarko Petroleum in a number of transactions, including the $18 billion acquisition of Kerr-McGee by Anadarko: 

Kerr-McGee acquisition

Skip McGee, head of Lehman Brothers' investment banking division, played a key role in the acquisition. JP Morgan also acted as a financial advisor 

 

____ 

" In December 2012, Tronox Inc. creditors concluded their case to recover at least $14 billion in damages from Anadarko Petroleum Corp’s Kerr-McGee unit over a spin off they claimed drove Tronox into bankruptcy.  

In 2006, Kerr-McGee spun off part of its business as Tronox  

before selling itself to Anadarko for $18.4 billion. 

 Tronox, which was previously under bankruptcy protection, alleged that  

Anadarko’s Kerr-McGee unit made the company insolvent b

by stripping away valuable oil and natural-gas assets and saddling it with 

 legacy costs for environmental remediation 

. Kerr-McGee alleged the suit was “sensational” and that Tronox was solvent, worth more than $1 billion and “poised to succeed.” On December 13, 2013, Judge Allan Groper of the Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of New York, found that the transfer was made with the intent 

 to hinder and delay the creditors and, further, that it was not made for reasonably equivalent value," 

_____ 

"Anadarko E&P Onshore LLC (“Anadarko”), an oil and natural gas company headquartered in Houston, Texas, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Occidental , and an affiliate of Glenn Springs Holdings, Inc.  

Anadarko has been a part of the Enid community since 2000 when we purchased Union Pacific Resources, which owned the Champlin Refinery property.  

Although the Champlin Refinery closed 16 years prior to being acquired by Anadarko, our top priority has been, and continues to be, managing our Enid property responsibly and in compliance with all regulations. 

  Since 2000, Anadarko has worked closely with the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) to address environmental impacts in the former Champlin Refinery area and continues working through the regulatory process. 

 One area that we are monitoring is located south of the former Champlin Refinery.   

The water you receive in your home for drinking, washing, and other potable purposes is provided from the City of Enid Public Water Supply. 

 There is no water quality issue associated with this water supply. The groundwater that is subject to this ongoing monitoring is separate from the city’s public water supply, and cannot be used for any potable purposes, according to city ordinance.  

https://www.champlinrefinery.com/ 

1954: Purchased by the Chicago Corporation for $55,000,000. This parent company changed its name to Champlin Refining Company in 1956.

1964: The Celanese Company purchased the company.

1970: The company was sold to Union Pacific Corporation and was kept as a wholly owned subsidiary.

1984: The Retail business of Champlin was purchased by American Petrofina, after Champlin closed the refinery.

around 1986, Union Pacific Corporation and Champlin Petroleum Company sold the Corpus Christi Refinery. The Champlin trade name was part of the deal. Champlin's name was changed to Union Pacific Resources Company (UPRC).

During late 1990s, Union Pacific Corporation spun off the Union Pacific Resources Company. 

2000: Anadarko Petroleum acquired Union Pacific Resources. 

_____ 

"The liquidation of Lehman Brothers' brokerage 

 unit was completed on September 28, 2022, 

 after 14 years. 

 The liquidation process included: 

Returning over $115 billion to customers and creditors 

Paying $106 billion to Lehman's 111,000 customers 

Making 100 percent distributions to secured, priority, and administrative creditors 

Making a 41.2841 percent recovery to unsecured general creditors " 

______ 

Did anyone go to jail for the 2008 financial crisis?

Yes, at least one person went to jail for their role in the 2008 financial crisis: Kareem Serageldin, a former Credit Suisse executive:  

Did anyone go to jail for the 2008 financial crisis?

Yes, at least one person went to jail for their role in the 2008 financial crisis: Kareem Serageldin, a former Credit Suisse executive:   * 

Crime

Conspiracy to falsify books and records of a financial institution

Sentence

30 months in prison 

____ 

"A historic settlement reached with Anadarko Petroleum Corp. and Kerr McGee  

has gone into effect, allowing funds to be disbursed for cleanups across the country, 

 announced Assistant Attorney General John C. Cruden for the Department of Justice’s Environment and Natural Resources Division, 

 U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara of the Southern District of New York, 

 and Assistant Administrator Cynthia Giles of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).  

This settlement resolves fraudulent conveyance claims brought by the United States and the Anadarko Litigation Trust, the trust against Anadarko Petroleum Corporation and its affiliates, the defendants, in the bankruptcy of Tronox Inc. and its subsidiaries.   

Today, pursuant to the settlement agreement, the defendants paid $5.15 billion, plus interest, to the trust. 

  The trust is expected to distribute more than $4.4 billion to fund environmental clean-up and for environmental claims.  

 The settlement constitutes the largest payment 

 for the clean-up of environmental contamination  

ever obtained in a lawsuit brought by the Department of Justice." 

'The Kerr-McGee Corporation spent decades despoiling our nation’s natural resources, 

 leaving a toxic legacy for communities across the nation, from Sidney, New York, to the Navajo nation,” said U.S. Attorney Bharara.  

 “Then, Kerr-McGee tried to escape the consequences of its misdeeds by transferring its most valuable assets to affiliates, 

 leaving an insolvent shell behind, unable to pay its environmental liabilities.   

As today’s historic payment shows, the government will not allow polluters to escape paying for the damage they inflict on our land, 

 water and people, and we will hold accountable those who attempt to shield themselves from responsibility behind improper corporate transactions.”

“If you pollute the environment, you should ....,"  

Pollute again and install Trump, Bush, Obama, Biden Regulators.

Loving

  

We left the bar already drunk, at

Least I was, living out of my van

A divorced man, I'd known her for years 

I a musician, she a regular, her boyfriend back 

Then also played fiddle 

Her kids were, are, the same age as my

Eldest, we drove in her car leaving mine 

At the thirst, a band was playing 

We sat at a table with another of her 

Ex boyfriends, she was wearing a huge silver 

Necklace i'd traded her for massage 

And a monthly pass at the spa she worked at 

Her ex, a poet, we discussed shit, 

He looked at her necklace, at me, drawing 

Inferences, fine nib but nothing pointed 

Came out, I went outside 

As the band continued, I puked by a tree 

That felt better 

At her home she undressed

I got in bed, I think wearing something, maybe 

Not, we slept 

It was Loving and gracious and sleep, 

That's all, she made us breakfast, coffee

She drove me to my van

A couple weeks later, a few, four 

Her boyfriend, there's been a few 

Fell down some stairs and died 

I knew him, he was acerbic, handsome, a 

Drinker, liked dogs and arguing 

People grieved his death at the bar

I spent no more times at her home

I felt uncomfortable at her spa 

And quit going, owing her more trade in jewelry

It was Loving 

That way, too.  

  

Rollaway wireless manna  

  

 

On a positive side, 60% don't. 

Isn't it simple?  

_______ 

 Kamala Harris Has Finally Embraced Being a Cop 

"the criticism that Harris was not sufficiently progressive as a prosecutor sounds anachronistic now — bizarre, even — but at the time, Harris was on her heels.  

She struggled to parry the “Kamala is a cop” narrative and, at times, even downplayed her own law-enforcement credentials.

"But now Harris has taken a strikingly different, and far more effective, position on her prosecutorial past.  

It has become a cornerstone of her campaign as she shifts to the center, eager to dispel any suggestion that she was some bleeding-heart liberal, 

 San Francisco flower-child DA who wept for her downtrodden defendants" 

"she has chosen to lean in and celebrate her prosecutorial background rather than apologize for it. "   

____  

Thank goodness they're part of the 60%.

,_____  

"As of 10 December 2024, over 46,000 people – 44,786 Palestinian

 and 1,706 Israeli 

– have been reported killed in the Israel–Hamas war, as well as 141–156 journalists and media workers, 

120 academics, 

 and over 224 humanitarian aid workers, a number that includes 179 employees of UNRWA." 

 

Tzigane

  

"Tzigane is a rhapsodic composition by the French composer Maurice Ravel. The original instrumentation was for violin and piano (with optional luthéal attachment).  

The first performance took place in London on 26 April 1924 with the dedicatee, Hungarian violinist Jelly d'Arányi, on the violin and Henri Gil-Marchex at the piano (with luthéal). In his biographical sketch of 1928 

Ravel spoke of it as "a virtuoso piece in the style of a Hungarian rhapsody".  

It consists of "a string of successive variations juxtaposed without development" 

In the early 1920s, Ravel had been planning a piece for violin and piano for his closest female friend, Hélène Jourdan-Morhange.  

Around the same time Ravel got to know d'Arányi when she played his Sonata for Violin and Cello with Hans Kindler in London,  

and afterwards regaled the composer with a selection of folk-tunes from her country. 

In the ensuing two years Ravel put aside the sonata he had intended for Jourdan-Morhange, who by then had retired from playing due to a chronic illness, and wrote the Tzigane. " 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tzigane 

"The luthéal was a new piano attachment .

(first patented in 1919) 

 with several tone-colour registrations which could be engaged by pulling stops above the keyboard. 

 One of these registrations had a cimbalom-like sound, which fitted well with the gypsy tone of the composition" 

 

______ 

"The name of the piece is derived from the generic European term for "gypsy" (in French: gitan, tsigane or tzigane rather than the Hungarian cigány) although it does not use any authentic Gypsy melodies."  

______ 

'the preamble (Lassan) as "superior exercises – 

 runs,  

staccato notes,  

trills and mordents". 

 Then follow a succession of "gipsy improvisations – the Friska, then the Czardas", at the end of which 

 "the rhapsody becomes impatient  

and runs feverishly 

 through all kinds of successive tonalities  

without retaining any of them" 

suffix, busybody

  

Look, I said. I picked it up

To show the friendly neighbor 

There with her kid 

To gather trash in the park. 

They had ungers. It was cool out, not raining 

I peeled off some wasp hive 

It looked like a paper mache cantaloupe 

Skin gone it revealed 

Stacked apartment layers 

Honey comb garages for each unit 

A stink bug crawled out 

She was gleeful and amazed 

A renter? A squatter, she proposed? 

A busybody, I thought.  

A touch nosy.  

____ 

-ment, suffix denoting concrete result 

Action, place  encampment 

State of condition resulting from (action) 

IE.   predicament  

___ 

The hive could've dropped on my head

In my bed 

Instead, the wind pachinko 

Lottery ball gifted a science 

Engineering marvel 

The trees other side 

Duh that's life the reprimand says 

Look, the sunny side of not getting 

Cancer is demise in incremental 

Luck displacement  

Fly away home the geese not chopped 

In the sentimental rotors 

That's aeronautics and imprinting 

The good parent building hives of precious trash 

  

The lady with her unger 

Ever ready, smoker in their back pocket 

Should the architect residents emerge 

 

2024

SE Portland  

Wasps construct their nests by chewing wood or other materials into a paper-like pulp, which they then use to build their homes: 

1. Find a location

The queen wasp emerges from hibernation in the spring and chooses a safe, dry place to build her nest. This could be a tree branch, eave, porch, or other location.

2. Gather materials

The queen wasp scrapes wood fibers from trees, fences, logs, or other wooden structures with her jaws. She may also use cardboard boxes.

3. Mix with saliva

The queen mixes the wood fibers with her saliva to create a soft, malleable pulp.

4. Build the nest

The queen forms the pulp into hexagonal cells and lays an egg in each one.

5. Expand the nest

Once the first worker wasps emerge, they take over the task of building the nest and foraging for food. The nest continues to grow throughout the spring and summer.

6. Abandon the nest

In the fall, the nest reaches its peak size and is abandoned because  

only the fertilized queen can survive the winter.

Lay Lady Lay 21 degrees, 102

  

"Dylan first played the song to group of singer-songwriters including Joni Mitchell, Graham Nash, and Kris Kristofferson at Cash's house outside of Nashville when they were passing a guitar and singing a song. 

Drummer Kenny Buttrey has said that he had a difficult time coming up with a drum part for the song. Dylan had suggested bongos, while producer Bob Johnston said cowbells. In order to "show them how bad their ideas were",  

Buttrey used both instruments together. Kris Kristofferson, who was working as a janitor in the studio at the time, was enlisted to hold the bongos in one hand and the cowbell in the other.  

Buttrey moved the sole overhead drum mic over to these new instruments. When he switches back to the drums for the choruses the drumset sounds distant due to not being directly miked. The take heard on the album is the first take and is one of Buttrey's own favorite performances." 

The song was also a favourite of popular singer Madonna, "I used to listen to that one record, 'Lay Lady Lay', in my brother's bedroom in the basement of our house," she recalled. "I'd lie on the bed and play that song and cry all the time.  

 I was going through adolescence; I had hormones raging through my body. Don't ask me why I was crying – it's not a sad song. But that's the only record of his that I really listened to." "

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lay_Lady_Lay 

(Just the facts)  

_____ 

"a hydrologist with the National Weather Service in Oregon, Jan. 21 and Jan. 23 set records for the coldest high temperatures on those days, which were, respectively and coincidentally,  

21 degrees and 23 degrees.

Months later, a report from Multnomah County suggested 

 the response to extreme weather should be stronger. "  

"The snow and ice storm was brutal. It knocked out power for days. People died from the cold, from fires and from downed power lines."

(Freezing. That's a word.)

'July 2024 was Portland’s warmest July on record, according to Bryant.

July 5-9, Portland set new daily records every day, he said.

Portland roasted during a string of days with temperatures around 100 degrees, and at least 17 people died."  

Warm? Hot as fucked climate.  

'On Sept. 5, the airport reached 102 degrees, setting a record for the day.It was also only the third time since the early 1940s when records started being kept at the Portland International Airport that Portland hit  

100 degrees in September." .

____ 

The writing was bad. It was really, really, really bad. 

It got worse. On a good note, it ended. Really. 

____ 

 

"456 people experiencing homelessness died in Multnomah County in 2023, up 45% from 2022"  

"409 more people than died in 2011, 

 the first year records were kept." 

'A total of 282 deaths, or 62%, were due to overdoses, according to the report. The vast majority of overdose deaths were caused by fentanyl, meth, or a combination of the two" 

"Of the non-overdose deaths, 26 people died by suicide, 18 died of either cancer or heart disease and 14 died by homicide, according to the report.  

There were no deaths caused by extreme heat and only one death due to cold weather. 

 Twenty-two people died in traffic accidents, 

 far higher than the rate of traffic deaths in the general population." 

 

"We wish we could have helped him more, but he wore a shield that said, ‘I’m good, I can do this, I don’t want to be a burden,’” Shelbie, whose last name was not included, told Dean." 

https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2024/12/456-people-experiencing-homelessness-died-in-multnomah-county-in-2023-up-45-from-2022.html

 

___ 

"In 17 years, Oregon sees 91% spike 

in homelessness, report says 

the data also said that of families with children who are homeless, about 56% are unsheltered. That is the highest in the nation. 

Oregon also has 1,315 unsheltered youth, the third highest in the country. "

https://katu.com/news/local/in-17-years-oregon-sees-91-spike-in-homelessness-report-says  

*.   

Who's been running Oregon for 17 years?

Go deep

  

'The morning bowl slate kicks off with the Oklahoma Sooners facing off with the Navy Midshipmen  

in the 2024  

Lockheed Martin Armed Forces Bowl, live from Gaza Stadium. 

The gladiators looking buff today, well fed on every day imaginable. The cheerleaders, genetically modified, every prance makes one kill to win. 

 

The scholarship for cheap hits is up for grabs, and naming rights are in a lottery that you can win and still lose. 

Who'll come out in one piece, not them, just remember all the profits stay in the local non economy, so watch, watch, buy, bloat, and watch some more to stretch the suffering. 

 

Mature audiences ha ha ha only.  

 

___ 

"I'm  not retiring. I’m not even close to retiring.”  

"I'm not Sam Adams. I'm not even close to Sam Adams."  

https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2024/12/portland-mayor-ted-wheeler-exits-city-hall-after-8-years-i-held-fast-i-didnt-quit-i-didnt-give-up.html

____ 

"Prof Geoffrey Hinton, who this year was awarded the Nobel prize in physics for his work in AI, said there was a  

“10% to 20%” chance  

that AI would lead to human extinction .

within the next three decades."  

Ok, Sam. 

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/dec/27/godfather-of-ai-raises-odds-of-the-technology-wiping-out-humanity-over-next-30-years

 

"Free facilities include a 400-seat concert hall where classical music classes are held, and the temazcal – a traditional Aztec sauna, which the Spanish colonisers tried to outlaw to prevent men and women from sharing the steam room naked." 

"At the Freedom Utopia, once 40,000 sq metres of wasteland, there is access to washing machines, and children can play in a sand park, visit the planetarium and stroke goats, ponies and cows in a petting zoo."  

 

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2024/dec/27/mexico-city-utopias-project-mayor

 

Ok, Chloe. 

Dead End Kids, Robert Jordan

  

'The Dead End Kids were a group of young actors from New York City who appeared in Sidney Kingsley's Broadway play Dead End in 1935. 

 In 1937, producer Samuel Goldwyn brought all of them to Hollywood and turned the play into a film. 

 They proved to be so popular that they continued to make movies under various monikers, including the Little Tough Guys, the East Side Kids, and the Bowery Boys, until 1958." 

In 1934, Sidney Kingsley wrote a play about a group of children growing up on the streets of New York City. Fourteen children were hired to play various roles in the play, including Billy Halop (Tommy), 

 Bobby Jordan (Angel),  

Huntz Hall (Dippy), Charles Duncan (Spit), Bernard Punsly (Milty), Gabriel Dell (T.B.), and Leo and David Gorcey (Second Avenue Boys).  

Duncan left for a role in another play before opening night, and was replaced by Leo, his understudy. Leo had been a plumber's assistant and was originally recruited by his brother David to audition for the play.

The play opened at the Belasco Theatre on October 28, 1935, and ran for two years, totaling 684 performances. Samuel Goldwyn and director William Wyler saw the play and decided to turn it into a film. They paid $165,000 for the rights to the film and began auditioning actors in Los Angeles.   

Failing to find actors who could convey the emotions they saw in the play, Goldwyn and Wyler had six of the original Kids (Halop, Jordan, Hall, Punsly, Dell, and Leo Gorcey) brought from New York City to Hollywood for the film. 

 The Kids were all signed to two-year contracts, allowing for possible future films, and began working on  

the 1937 United Artists' film, Dead End 

. The actual name of the gang of boys in Dead End is written in chalk on the wall shown throughout the movie. It reads: "East 53rd Place Gang Members Only". 

 During production, the boys ran wild around the studio, destroying property, including a truck that they crashed into a sound stage. Goldwyn chose not to use them again and sold their contract to Warner Bros." 

Warner Bros. had initially attempted to rename them the "Crime School Kids" through advertisements for their first two films produced there, starting with  

 Crime School (1937), to disassociate them from their previous studio's film,  

and promote their own 

At Warner Bros., the Dead End Kids made six films, including  

Angels with Dirty Faces,  

with some of the top actors in Hollywood, including 

 James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart, John Garfield, Pat O'Brien, and Ronald Reagan.  

The last one was in 1939, when they were released from their contracts owing to more antics on the studio lot. "  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_End_Kids

Buzzin' Kousins, minus four

  

"His father, novelist Larry McMurtry, gave him his first guitar at age seven. 

 His mother, an English professor, taught him how to play it:  

"My mother taught me three chords and the rest I just stole as I went along.  

I learned everything by ear or by watching people." 

"He began performing in his teens, writing bits and pieces. He started performing his own songs at a downtown beer garden while studying English and Spanish at the University of Arizona in Tucson.  

After traveling to Alaska and playing a few gigs, he returned to Texas and his father's "little bitty ranch house crammed with 10,000 books".  

After a time, he left for San Antonio, where he worked as a house painter, actor, bartender, and sometimes singer, performing at writers' nights and open-mic events." 

"McMurtry appeared on the soundtrack of the film Falling from Grace, working with Mellencamp, John Prine, Joe Ely and Dwight Yoakam in a "supergroup"  

called Buzzin' Cousins."  

"McMurtry at his most political, as his working-class anthem "We Can't Make It Here" included direct criticism of George W. Bush, the Iraq War, and Wal-Mart. The music critic Robert Christgau ranked "We Can't Make It Here" as the best song of the 2000s." 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_McMurtry 

____ 

"Portland has six of the country’s best vegan eateries, according to this vegan magazine " 

"Across 20 categories, Portland restaurants claimed six No. 1 spots, tying for Los Angeles as the city with the most first place wins. " 

"Vertical Diner: Best Vegan Diner

This diner started in Salt Lake City, but opened a Portland location at 8124 S.W. Barbur Blvd. in 2019. Located inside a retro diner building, VegNews says Vertical Diner is known for its “juicy mango-habanero chicken tenders, all-day American breakfast classics, and even some not-what-you’d-expect diner fare like vegan escargot with carrot butter and crostini.” 

"Dirty Lettuce: Best Vegan Soul Food

Starting as a food cart, Dirty Lettuce opened a brick-and-mortar location at 4727 N.E. Fremont St. in 2021. And though it might be a surprise for a Portland spot to have the best of a Southern cuisine, restaurant owner Alkebulan Moroski hails from Jackson, Mississippi.  

As The Oregonian’s Michael Russell wrote, Dirty Lettuce “fries up seitan ‘chicken’ to a satisfying crunch and slathers tender ‘ribs’ in a sweet-tangy barbecue sauce.  

This is serious comfort food, hold the meat.”

"Feral: Best New Vegan Restaurant

Feral, 1640 N.E. Killingsworth St., open last November. Here, VegNews writes, “wild and foraged foods take center stage,” and the menu changes regularly based on what’s seasonably available.  

The magazine gives a shoutout to the restaurant’s  

“baked leek fondue with Vtopian cheese 

 and fried Triscuits,” 

 and “cheesecake miso-apple cider butterscotch.”  

 

 

https://www.oregonlive.com/dining/2024/12/portland-has-six-of-the-countrys-best-vegan-eateries-according-to-this-vegan-magazine.html

Path 65 (with respect to earth.)

  

"The Pacific DC Intertie 

 (also called Path 65)    

"The LaPerm is a breed of cat.  

"A LaPerm's fur is curly (hence the name "perm"), with the tightest curls being on the throat and on the base of the ears. 

 LaPerms come in many colors and patterns. LaPerms generally have a very affectionate personality."

is an electric power transmission line that transmits electricity from the Pacific Northwest to the Los Angeles area using high voltage direct current (HVDC). 

 The line capacity is 3.1 gigawatts, which is enough to serve  

two to three million Los Angeles households  

and represents almost half of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) electrical system's peak capacity." 

"The intertie originates near the Columbia River at the Celilo Converter Station of Bonneville Power Administration's grid outside  

The Dalles, Oregon and is connected to the Sylmar Converter Station north of Los Angeles, which is owned by five utility companies and managed by LADWP.  

The Intertie can transmit power in either direction, but power flows mostly from north to south." Mmmm 

"By 1961, US president John F. Kennedy authorized a large public works project, using new high voltage direct current technology from Sweden. The project was undertaken as a close collaboration between General Electric of the US and ASEA of Sweden. 

 Private California power companies had opposed the project but their technical objections were rebutted by Uno Lamm of ASEA at an IEEE meeting in New York in 1963. When completed in 1970 the combined AC and DC transmission system was estimated  

to save consumers in Los Angeles approximately 

 US$600,000 per day  (1963 mind you)

by use of cheaper electric power  

from dams on the Columbia River. 

"Any time the Intertie demand lessens, the excess is distributed elsewhere on the 

 western power grid  

(states west of the Great Plains, including Colorado and New Mexico)."  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_DC_Intertie

 

 

The first phase of the scheme, completed in May 1970, 

 used only mercury-arc valves in the converters. 

 The valves were series connected in three six-pulse valve bridges for each pole. The blocking voltage of the valves was 133 kV with a maximum current of 1,800 amperes, for a transmission rating of 1,440 MW with a symmetrical voltage of 400 kV  

(with respect to earth.)

Each converter station housed six mercury arc valves groups, consisting each of seven valves, for a total of 42 valves in each converter. 

 The valves had a width of 7.1 feet (2.15 m), a height of 10 feet (3.2 m) and a length of 11 feet (3.5 m) and weighed 14,000 pounds (6,400 kg). 

 Each valve contained 

 1.1 litres  

(37 US fl oz) mercury, 

 with a weight of 33 pounds " 

"1972: 

 After the Sylmar earthquake, 

 the Sylmar Converter Station had to be 

 reconstructed due to extensive damage. 

1993: 

 One pole of the Pacific Intertie Expansion converter station at Sylmar was completely destroyed by fire. 

 The converter was replaced in 1994–1995 by Siemens. 

1994:  

After the Northridge earthquake, the Sylmar Converter Station had to be 

 reconstructed due to extensive damage." 

___ 

"The breed was named after their curly coat which bears resemblance to a shaggy perm. 

 The name follows the Chinookan tradition of adopting French words  

while incorporating the definite article to create a new word; 

 for example, in Chinook Wawa, 'pipe' is lapeep and 'apple' is lapom,  

(la pipe and la pomme, respectively, in French)". 

It has nothing to do with Electrification 

Or LA, California 

Or frizzy heads from static  .

"The LaPerm emerged around the early 1980s as a spontaneous mutation of cats bred for pest control.  

The breed founders were Linda and Richard Koehl from The Dalles, Oregon, whose cat Speedy gave birth to a curly-coated kitten, named Curly, from whom all LaPerms descend.  

The Koehls allowed a free-breeding colony of curly-coated cats to develop over a period of ten years before making contact with members of the cat fancy and initiating a formal breeding program." 

____ 

'In 1893, the name changed to "Sylmar", a fusion of two Latin words for "forest" and "sea" in reference to the large number of olive trees that once covered the area." 

The foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains were transformed in the late 1890s by the Los Angeles Olive Growers Association

 In 1894, up to 1,700 acres of land were planted with olives trees and by 1906, the property had become the largest olive grove in the world

Tipped off by a Sylmar resident, dozens of investigators from at least five police departments and three federal agencies raided a warehouse at 12898 Bradley Street, on September 29, 1989, and seized some 

 21.4 tons of cocaine and $10 million in cash. 

 It was the largest confiscation of the drug in history, estimated at $6.9 billion, enough for 1.38 billion doses.   

tumwata, symbolic trail from Salad LaPerm NoGold

  

"Situated at the base of Willamette Falls, it had long been an important fishing and gathering spot for several local Indigenous tribes.

By 1829, Dr. John McLoughlin of the Hudson’s Bay Company laid out a two-square-mile claim near the falls and encouraged white traders, missionaries and emigrants to settle there. " 

 

"By 1846, the new city had grown to 500 residents, with two churches, two saloons and a newspaper “Oregon Spectator.”

Beginning in the mid 1840s, thousands of westward settlers arrived in the city, making it 

 the symbolic end  

of the Oregon Trail." 

"the arrival of settlers decimated the Indigenous population of the area.  

The early Euro-American migrants brought smallpox, cholera and other diseases that killed thousands of Native Americans in the region.  

As settlers moved in, the remaining inhabitants were forced out of the region.

In 1855, local tribes ceded Willamette Falls to the United States under the Willamette Valley Treaty and Native people were  

forcibly removed to the Grand Ronde Reservation.

In 2019, the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde purchased a 23-acre property at Willamette Falls that was formerly home to a Blue Heron Paper Company mill."  

 

https://www.opb.org/article/2024/12/24/oregon-city-180-anniversary/ 

_____  

"Knowledge Conquers Fear"  

"The Dalles (/ˈdælz/) DALZ; formally the City of The Dalles and also called Dalles City, is an inland port and the largest city in Wasco County, Oregon, United States. 

 The population was 16,010 at the 2020 census, and it is the largest city in Oregon along the Columbia River outside the Portland Metropolitan Area.  

The Dalles is 75 miles (121 km) east of Portland, within the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area."  

"The area around The Dalles is known to have been a trading center for Native Americans as long as 10,000 years ago and is thus one of the oldest inhabited places in North America." 

'In French, "les dalles" means "the slabs". When a river flows over hard flat rocks, it becomes shallow, and rapids are created." 

'"The rapids of the Columbia River at The Dalles was the largest and longest of the four "great portages",   

where fur trading boats had to unload and transship their cargoes.  

Sometimes, during high water, boats traveling downriver would "shoot the rapids" instead of portaging, although the practice was dangerous" 

 "" 

"1855, at the end of the Cayuse War, the Indians living near The Dalles were forcibly relocated by the U.S. Army to the Warm Springs Indian Reservation. "

the practice was dangerous

The race was dangerous 

The river was shooting 

The race was shot

The practice was malpractice of law  

The aims were aimless 

Rapids created rapid portage 

The city formed on the slabs of man  

"In the early 1840s American settlers began to arrive in significant numbers, traveling overland via the Oregon Trail. 

 The trail ended at The Dalles.  

It was not possible to take wagons farther west due to steep cliffs that fell straight into the Columbia River.  

Until the construction of the Barlow Road in 1846, the only way to reach Fort Vancouver and the Willamette Valley was by rafting down the river from The Dalles"

  

'In 1864, the U.S. Congress appropriated money to build a U.S. mint in The Dalles that was to use gold from Canyon City for coinage. 

 The supply of gold from Canyon City began to dwindle, however, and other problems, such as cost overruns, workers leaving to work the gold fields, and flooding from the Columbia River, also contributed to the project running two years behind schedule and led eventually to its demise. 

 In 1870, the State of Oregon received the property from the U.S. Government and the building was put to other uses" 

"Construction of The Dalles Dam in 1957 submerged the Long Narrows and Celilo Falls.

In 1963, Ken Kesey's novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was published featuring the narrator, Chief, who is from The Dalles.

In 1970, the Bonneville Power Administration opened the Celilo Converter Station near the northern terminus of the Pacific DC Intertie which sends 3,100 megawatts of electricity to Los Angeles.

In 1982, a curly-coated kitten was born on a farm in The Dalles owned by Linda and Dick Koehl. 

 The Koehls used this kitten and her offspring to develop a new breed of cat called the LaPerm,  

which went on to become a popular, established, championship pedigree cat breed around the world." 

"In 1984, The Dalles was the site of the first and single largest bioterrorism attack in United States history."  

___ 

'Wasco County is one of the 36 counties in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2020 census, the population was 25,213 

 Its county seat is The Dalles. 

The county is named for a local tribe of Native Americans, the Wasco, a Chinook tribe who live on the south side of the Columbia River. 

 It is near the Washington state line.  " 

"The Oregon Territorial Legislature created Wasco County on January 11, 1854, from the parts of Clackamas, Lane, Linn and Marion counties, that were east of the Cascade Range.  

          At the time of its creation, 

 it was the largest county in the United States,  

consisting of 

 130,000 square miles (340,000 km2) 

 that stretched clear to the Rocky Mountains.  

Its northern border was the Washington Territory line (the Columbia River).  

When Dakota Territory (including present-day Wyoming) was created in 1861, Idaho Territory in 1863, and Montana Territory in 1864, the parts of Wasco County east of the present Oregon boundaries were ceded to those territories. 

 Other Oregon counties were split away, and Wasco was reduced to its current size.

"When the Rajneeshees subsequently recruited homeless people from across the United States to settle at Rajneeshpuram, it was widely seen as an attempt  

to use the ballot box to seize control of the county "

"Rajneesh was arrested as he was fleeing the U.S. in 1985 and he was subsequently indicted along with seven followers for immigration crimes by a federal grand jury.  

A separate grand jury in Wasco County charged three Rajneeshees of attempted murder, while Rajneesh entered  

an Alford plea  

and was given a suspended sentence on condition that he leave the country. " 

____ 

"In United States law, an Alford plea, also called a Kennedy plea in West Virginia, 

 an Alford guilty plea, 

 and the Alford doctrine is a guilty plea in criminal court, whereby a defendant in a criminal case  

does not admit to the criminal act and a 

sserts innocence, but accepts imposition of a sentence. 

 This plea is allowed even if the evidence to be presented by the prosecution would be likely to persuade a judge or jury to find the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt" 

"Gee, I dunno, I just found it"

A walk

 

 

 

 

Only a bot would unearth such mammoths

  

Old United States raided the panties of

104 cavegirls from

Romania even though five eyes watched using

27 hyper agents dining in a sushi joint in

Portugal under

25 hours in a day promised the dolt from

Ukraine unstitching the panties

16 ways to make

Macedonia undearth the treasures of her loins

2 well glued for the swan down off

Canada but none too virtuous

1 imagines as

Japan tips threads from polyester to rayon

1 way better than

Morocco even tho their

1 synthetic panty sheer elasticity is worth alaska or the

Netherlands if one threw in

1 mink lash from

Russia the last

1 ever. 

2017 

________  

 

"The investigation concludes that Gaetz, Trump’s first pick for attorney general, 

 made payments totalling tens of thousands of dollars to women for sex and drugs across at least 20 separate occasions. 

 The report also states that in 2017 Gaetz paid a 17-year-old girl for sex  

when he was 35 years old, which would constitute statutory rape 

 under Florida law."

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/dec/23/matt-gaetz-house-ethics-report-release 

"The committee determined there is substantial evidence that Representative Gaetz violated House Rules and other standards of conduct prohibiting 

 prostitution, statutory rape,   

illicit drug use, impermissible gifts,  

special favors or privileges,  

and obstruction of Congress,” the Republican-led panel wrote in the investigation. 

"Investigators also highlighted a 2018 trip to the Bahamas where Gaetz allegedly “engaged in sexual activity” with multiple women. One woman told the committee that the trip itself served as “payment” for sexual services. The same witness reported that Gaetz took ecstasy during the Bahamas visit, which investigators determined violated House gift rules. " 

$$$ 

"Greenland’s elected leader said the gigantic Arctic island is not for sale  

after Donald Trump once again raised the issue of “ownership and control”  

of the vast territory that has been part of Denmark  

for more than 600 years." 

'"For purposes of National Security and Freedom throughout the World,  

the United States of America feels  

that the ownership and control of Greenland  

is an absolute necessity,”  https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/dec/23/trump-buying-greenland-ownership

Trump wrote on Truth Social. "

"Separately on Sunday, Trump also threatened to  

reassert US control over the Panama Canal,  

accusing Panama of charging excessive rates " 

&&&&& 

"Baby mammoth in Russia is the ‘best-preserved’ ever found

The 50,000-year-old female, nicknamed Yana, is one of only seven whole remains discovered in world" 

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2024/dec/23/baby-mammoth-russia-best-preserved-ever-yana 

.

Stammtisch

  

"As I learned, Stammtisch ("shtom-tish") means "regulars' table".  

It's an age-old German tradition where a group of like-minded people — 

 traditionally men — meet up at a bar or a restaurant at a regular time to have drinks and chat." 

'...described the classic Stammtisch: "In every German village there is the corner bar, and in the corner is a table.  

It's reserved for the sort of elders or other regulars.  

And they sit in the corner and they drink their beer and smoke their cigarettes and pontificate on the town and all of its craziness." 

What about a coffee Stammtisch?

"That's called a Kaffeekränzchen," Hein explained. "That's typically more like the women when they meet in the afternoon for a coffee and cake. Also another very traditional German thing." 

https://www.npr.org/2024/12/22/nx-s1-5233033/holidays-loneliness-cure-stammtisch  

______ 

The Race to Translate Animal Sounds Into Human Language 

"modern machine learning tools require extremely large amounts of data, and up until now, such quantities of high-quality and well-annotated data have been lacking. "

"It’s not just that human data corpora are many orders of magnitude larger than the kind of data we have access to for animals in the wild:  

More than 500 GB of words were used to train GPT-3, compared to just more than 8,000 “codas” (or vocalizations) for Project Ceti’s recent analysis of sperm whale communication. "

'We even know what constitutes a “word,” which is a huge advantage over interpreting animal communication, 

 where scientists rarely know whether a particular wolf howl, 

 for instance, means something different from another wolf howl,  

or even whether the wolves consider a howl as somehow analogous to a “word” in human language." 

'Now, new automatic detection algorithms based on convolutional neural networks can race through thousands of hours of recordings, picking out the animal sounds and clustering them into different types, according to their natural acoustic characteristics.

Once those large animal datasets are available, new analytical algorithms become a possibility, 

 such as using deep neural networks to find hidden structure in sequences of animal vocalizations" 

https://www.wired.com/story/artificial-intelligence-translation-animal-sounds-human-language/  

_____ 

"Champagne’s sordid secret: the homeless and hungry migrants picking grapes for France’s luxury winemakers

Exclusive: Guardian investigation finds an  

underpaid, underfed workforce, some of whom are forced to sleep on the streets, 

 exploited by a system of labour providers" 

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2024/dec/23/france-champagne-growers-allegations-trafficking-court-case-vineyard-workers 

"Last year,  

300 million 

bottles of champagne  

from the vineyards of northern France were shipped around the world, generating  

€6 billion in revenues.

Yet the champagne industry has been hit by a string of controversies related to its treatment of grape-pickers, with  

four workers  

dying from suspected sunstroke during last year’s harvest"  

6  billion$ 

4 dead  

“Every night, we wondered whether we were going to be fired the next morning or not.” Her payslip showed she was paid less than the French minimum hourly wage, and no overtime.

Unions blame vineyards for continuing to blindly accept cheap labour and the sector as a whole for failing to ban exploitative labour providers. They say some vineyard owners try to justify themselves by arguing that they are “helping African migrants” by giving them employment, even if it is underpaid."  

____ 

'Remarkable images taken by automatic cameras in the Brazilian rainforest reveal an isolated community that appears to be thriving despite pressure from ranchers and illegal encroachment into the Amazon.

The pictures, of a group of men, offer the outside world its first glimpse of the community – and give further evidence the population is growing.  

The group is known as the Massaco after the river that runs through their lands, but  

no one knows what they call themselves, 

 while their language, social fabric and beliefs remain a mystery.' 

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2024/dec/22/exclusive-photographs-reveal-first-glimpse-of-uncontacted-amazon-community-massaco

Nazi shit musk

  

"It was passed 38 minutes after the deadline but the government did not invoke shutdown procedures in the interim. "  

___ 

T"he German health minister, Karl Lauterbach, called Musk’s decision to wade into the German political debate weeks before the snap election “undignified and highly problematic”

Nazi shit smells as it acts. 

deeper in shit

 

"The US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said on Friday it filed a lawsuit against 

JPMorgan Chase,  

Bank of America  

and Wells Fargo  

for failing to protect consumers from alleged 

 “widespread fraud”  

on the payments platform Zelle." 

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/dec/20/cfpb-jpmorgan-wells-fargo-zelle-fraud 

"Zelle is a payments network owned by seven banks, including JPMorgan and BofA.  

It has over 143 million American consumers and small businesses as customers."  

____ 

“If it wasn’t for France, 

 you’d be 10,000 times deeper in shit.” 

Cyclone Chido swept through Mayotte, which lies between Madagascar and Mozambique, on 14 December,  

destroying vital infrastructure and flattening many of the  

tin-roofed shacks that make up its large slums.  

Almost a week after its worst storm in 90 years,  

France’s poorest territory  

still has shortages of water. 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/20/emmanuel-macron-swears-amid-furious-exchange-with-cyclone-hit-mayotte-islanders 

"According to an article in Le Monde on Wednesday, the French president said during a discussion last year in front of his then health minister, Aurélien Rousseau, that the 

 “problem with emergency care in this country is that it’s filled with people called Mamadou”.  

Mamadou is a name popular among men originating from Muslim ethnic groups in west Africa."

 

____ 

"The Uihleins have emerged as a major force in rightwing politics, 

 spending tens of millions of dollars supporting candidates, including president-elect Trump and other rightwing politicians,  

who have called for a mass deportation of immigrants. 

 They were the second-largest political donors in this year’s election, giving more than even Elon Musk, the world’s richest man." 

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/dec/20/uline-mexican-workers-trump

 

"Legal experts said B1 visas are intended to be used for short-term visits – no longer than six months – and that workers are not meant to engage in “productive employment” in that time.

"Once the Mexican workers enter the US, sources alleged, they work regular shifts in Uline warehouses alongside their American counterparts." 

"They are paid their Mexican wages into accounts in Mexico. Although they receive some extra compensation for traveling to the US and staying there, they are paid far less than American counterparts, sources told the Guardian."  

It does not allow them to obtain wages for labor in the United States, it absolutely does not,” said Marc Christopher, a Wisconsin-based immigration lawyer. 

 “If they’re doing warehouse work, especially second or third shift, that’s not a close call.” He added that he believed it was “absolutely 100% not allowed" 

,"According to Federal Election Commission filings, the Uihleins spent at least $130m during the 2024 election cycle to support Trump and other rightwing Republicans."  

____