Small Talk: Out of Genoa

[boes]

Cupid Stunt, I'm so glad that Thing 2's appendix got resolved when it did!  Poor thing, that's some terrible pain to be in.  

Rest up - and I mean you, that's enough stress to last you for a while.

[ByTor]

Discussions about Facist assholes and the next election violate the no politics rule.  Posts have been removed.  Further political discussion will result in warnings.

[Cupid Stunt]

Oops … Let me try this again.

(((Preverts are the best people!)))

Thing2 is sore, but mobile, sleeping in his old room at home, rather than return to Alky-traz, his shared house near campus. Nana and her housekeeper moved in to lecture Thing2, because they love.

I took the redeye this morning to NYC for a meeting with the MBAs of the Universe at corporate.

-- You're all super-duper post-revolutionary managers, and we are not worthy of your beneficence.

-- How much bootlicking do you need before the coronation?

-- The crown looks very nice with your pantsuit. Can I go home now?

NYC is very crowded. Period.

[jpagan05]

Uranus jokes never get old!

@Cupid Stunt Glad your babe is on the mend❤️

New Order featuring William Wegman's doggo Fay Ray

[OhioSongbird]

1 hour ago, Cupid Stunt said:

Thing2 is sore, but mobile, sleeping in his old room at home, rather than return to Alky-traz, his shared house near campus.

Cupid...ya done kilt me.  😂

So glad to hear he's getting better.  No matter how old they are, they will always be our babies.....

Give him a hug from Auntie Ohio.

[peacheslatour]

Has anyone heard from AngelKitty?

[Cupid Stunt]

43 minutes ago, OhioSongbird said:

Cupid...ya done kilt me.  😂

So glad to hear he's getting better.  No matter how old they are, they will always be our babies.....

Give him a hug from Auntie Ohio.

That's what we called edifices of stacked beer cans snaking out of the front rooms of the many party houses I visited in college; thus another Alky-traz was inaugurated.

Good times. 

[Cupid Stunt]

Left Coaster back home. Just hugged the stuffing's out of Mr.Stunt. Thing2 is sleeping peacefully … Put on your helmets for the news.

• Sky turns blood red in Indonesia

• The University of Kansas has received a NCAA notice of allegations that outlines major violations against the Jayhawks men’s basketball team and coach Bill Self, as well as secondary football violations. -- There goes my fantasy college football team roster

• Why the repo market is such a big deal — and why its $400 billion bailout is so unnerving

• Leaders Detail Efforts on Climate, But Get Earful From Young Activist

• 'How dare you?' Greta Thunberg asks world leaders at UN

• The United Nations is trying to pressure the world into faster action on climate change

• Greta Thunberg, the UN summit, and gridlock: Another day of dramatic climate action, in photos

• “You have stolen my dreams”: Greta Thunberg rages at world leaders at UN climate summit

• MSNBC’s Ali Velshi on why cable news is suddenly talking so much about climate change

• How much destruction is needed for us to take climate change seriously? -- Whether human civilization stays intact amid this worsening weather depends on recognizing our shared humanity.

• Cashing In on Climate Change -- The unlikely winemaker. The private firefighter. The Canadian farmer. Who’s trying to get rich off a crisis and who’s just lucky.

• Climate Change Destroyed My Home -- Now I've made it my job to convince people that global warming is real.

• My Home Is Already Being Destroyed by Climate Change -- In this op-ed, Zero Hour activist Kaylah Brathwaite describes the toll climate change has taken on her home in the U.S. Virgin Islands, and why she went on strike on September 20.

• Trash Is The Next Fashion Frontier -- By 2050 the fashion industry will use a quarter of the world’s carbon budget. Zero Waste Daniel is trying to change that.

• $2B waterway through Deep South yet to yield promised boom

• Covering Climate Now is a global journalism initiative committed to bringing more and better coverage to the defining story of our time.

• Can Someone Be Fired for Being Gay? The Supreme Court Will Decide

A figure of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is seen during the Equality March in Katowice, Poland, on September 7, 2019 -- Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images

• Pastafarian pastor leads prayer at Alaska government meeting

• A Pastafarian hilariously trolled a town council meeting. -- The Satanic Temple and the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster are playing a dangerous high-stakes game with the Supreme Court.

• Kanye West attracts thousands to Wyoming for worship service

• Opioid-maker Purdue Pharma is allowed bonus payout in bankruptcy case 

• The World Health Organization is concerned Tanzania may be hiding Ebola cases -- The agency issued a rare statement saying health officials in the East African country aren’t being transparent.

This is old news, but it still tics me off ...

• Why No Financial Crisis Prosecutions? Ex-Justice Official Says It’s Just too Hard

• Prosecuting Wall Street -- Two high-ranking financial whistleblowers say they tried to warn their superiors about defective and even fraudulent mortgages. So why haven't the companies or their executives been prosecuted?

• $6,000 in stolen quarters found in California baby stroller

• Kroger will start selling longer-lasting avocados -- So they'll taste like nothing longer

• To bring “prestige” back to education, make teachers tax-exempt, says Blackstone CEO Steve Schwarzman

• America’s abortion debate is being defined by Fox News -- A new study shows how the network dominates coverage of abortion, and sets the agenda other networks follow.

• Walmart shootings prompt retailers to change their open-carry policies -- Walmart, Kroger, CVS, and more are asking customers to leave their guns at home.

***Content Warning -- Suicide, Sexual Abuse, Domestic Violence, and Shrek ***

• From Philosophy Tube: This brilliant YouTube video is one of the best TV episodes of the year -- You won’t be able to look away from it. Literally.

Edited September 24, 2019 by Cupid Stunt

[Cupid Stunt]

Come back to us AngelKitty.

[Cupid Stunt]

• Greta Thunberg, After Pointed U.N. Speech, Faces Attacks

• Attacks on Greta Thunberg expose the stigma autistic girls face -- The climate activist is facing sexist and ableist criticism. She’s not alone.

• Greta Thunberg became a climate activist not in spite of her autism, but because of it -- The 16-year-old climate activist’s radical approach to autism.

• Greta Thunberg Is Right to Panic -- The teenage climate-change activist has taken on anxieties far beyond her years. Adults should listen.

• Landmark UN report warns sea levels will rise faster than projected by 2100

• UN chief warns of a world divided between super powers

• The UN Climate Action Summit was a disappointment -- The biggest emitters - China, the US, and India - aren’t doing enough to reduce their contributions to climate change.

• Scientists are racing to read rapidly melting Austrian glacier archives of climate data

• Hardy scientists trek to Venezuela's last glacier amid chaos

• California utility cuts power to 24,000 customers

• California threatened with highway funding cuts over 'worst air quality'

• Solar sector sees tax credit extension adding $87 billion to U.S. economy

• Nuclear energy too slow, too expensive to save climate: report -- And there's still no secure disposal site.

• German prosecutors indict top VW bosses over emissions scandal

• Feds: Engineer manipulated diesel emissions at Fiat Chrysler

Moo.

• A herd of spotted cows made a late-night visit to the Spotted Cow brewery

• Opera legend Plácido Domingo quits Metropolitan Opera after sexual harassment allegations

• The WeWork mess, explained -- From the “next Alibaba” to a financial liability for SoftBank, here’s how the coworking startup got to this point.

• WeWork's Neumann surrenders control, CEO role following investor revolt

• How WeWork’s “fiasco” could threaten Silicon Valley’s rich and powerful -- Silicon Valley is trying to point fingers for the demise of WeWork. It is not pointing fingers at itself.

• The WeWork CEO’s outsize power is one reason the company is imploding -- How giving founders super voting shares can hurt a company.

• 1.3 million winners and 2.8 million losers from the new overtime rule -- The fight to expand overtime pay, explained.

• FAA chief seeks support for agency’s review of Boeing jet

• Investigator says FAA training inspectors weren’t qualified

• Six U.S. insurers to pay $1.83 million for improper annuity-swapping: New York regulator

• Boston Dynamics' robot dog is now available for select customers

• Huge nature reserve shrinks bison plan after pushback

• Animal rescue operators charged after 150 dead dogs found

• A spoonful less sugar, tad more fat: US diets still lacking

• Harvard law professor: Throw out lawsuit by Epstein accuser -- And off the hook 

• Emmett Till cousin on inquiry: ‘What is the holdup?’

• Motown mogul Berry Gordy announces retirement at 89

• A previously unreleased track from Franklin is coming out

[valleycliffe]

[Petunia13]

I’m still waitressing. The place in new at I kinda realized is a career place and I could end up making good money if I develop myself. Meaning improve my skills serving and grow in getting better sections  and parties and excelling more doing my sidework faster. Yesterday I walked out after tipping out w $130 cash for dinner and had a tiny section today though I had lunch and dinner but shitty sections and was barely sat and left w $133.  I called the vp of the dealership today and mentioned I still haven’t been paid even though I had direct deposit and left messages inquiring, so should I proceed w my Illinois Department of Labor claim and wow magically she has the check waiting for me to pick up now. It really shouldn’t have to be that deep, they let me go so why the bitter behavior and knew I had a whole nother job so withholding the pay wasn’t like some sick burn on top of precarious financial vulnerability. I can’t relate to that level of pettiness and just being an asshole for the sake of it because the perception of superiority for insecure people is tantalizing. 

Hope @AngelKitty is well. 

[Cupid Stunt]

• Banned Books Week

• The US almost tore itself apart to get to 50 states. Can DC make it 51? -- Creating a state should be simple. America’s divisions make it a lot more complicated.

• Job ads on Facebook discriminated against women and older workers, EEOC says -- The decision center around Facebook’s advertising model.

• Here’s why the Amazon climate walkout is a big deal -- Organizers want to see the company promise to make zero emissions, drop contracts with fossil fuel companies, and stop funding climate change deniers.

• Jeff Bezos says Amazon is writing its own facial recognition laws to pitch to lawmakers -- The tech giant’s hope is that federal lawmakers will adopt much of its draft legislation.

• Amazon’s Alexa-powered ambitions contradict its promises to protect your privacy -- Amazon unveiled 15 new gadgets during an event at its Seattle headquarters

• The bare minimum America could do to expand health coverage -- Automatic enrollment, the simple and bipartisan plan to expand health coverage.

• Startups are selling you pills through Instagram. Why don’t they say which ones? -- Instagram forbids the paid marketing of pharmaceuticals. But what happens when you click through on the promise of feeling better?

• CEO stuns employees with immediate $10K raise, pledges a $30K raise over the next 5 years -- "I’m kind of heartbroken right now by the vast consolidation of wealth and power that's happening, and in addition how that's affecting our decisions around climate," Price, 35, told ABC News Tuesday of his decision. In 2015, Price announced a minimum salary of $70,000 for his entire Seattle office -- and took an "80 or 90% pay cut" in his own salary.

• Tech workers have been reluctant to unionize, but Google contractors just changed that -- A group of Google contractors who hold college degrees, get paid as little as $40,000 a year, and don’t receive sick days voted to unionize on Tuesday.

• Exclusive: Texas signs ex-Microsoft lawyer, others to aid in Google antitrust probe

• Exclusive: Oracle says investigators have asked it for information about Google

• You have the right to be forgotten by Google  -- but only in Europe

• Lawsuit calls for full public view of executions in Virginia

• Psychiatrist: Man accused of killing 6 controlled by voices

• Prosecutor: Man claiming insanity knew killing 6 was wrong

• Colombia ex-rebels testify on kidnappings at peace tribunal

• Plácido Domingo focus shifts to California, the last of his US shows

• Couples attend a mass wedding at the city's municipal government building ahead of the 70th founding anniversary of People's Republic of China in Jiaxing, Zhejiang province, China. --REUTERS/Stringer Reuters Editor's Choice Pictures -- Tue Sep 24, 2019

• With its new tobacco industry CEO, has Juul become Big Tobacco? -- Juul wants to help solve smoking. But it keeps cozying up to the tobacco industry.

• The burger brawl -- Plant-based meat and the knock-down, drag-out fight for the American diet.

• Dairy Nonprofit Executives Earn Millions While Farmers Lose Out, According To Report

• Avocado face masks, oat milk shampoo: how health food invaded the beauty aisle -- Thanks to a collective obsession with wellness and a growing concern about beauty product safety, brands are turning to trendy food ingredients — but do they actually do anything? 

• The Food Network thinks you’ll pay $7 a month for a digital version of the Food Network -- Discovery would like you to think of its new Food Network Kitchen subscription service as the Peloton for cooking. -- Have they actually watched their content, or the lack thereof?

• These apps make a game out of relieving anxiety. -- Popular apps are awarding points for beating “bad guys” and completing “power-ups” — and drawing from real, clinically approved treatments.

• Drugmakers are lobbying hard to preserve their pricing power

• “Heritage travel” is surging in the era of DNA testing. It has a special significance for black Americans. -- Some travelers have long desired a chance to mend family trees broken by slavery. For others, it’s complicated.

Sea ice meets land as seen from NASA’s Operation IceBridge research aircraft -- Mario Tama/Getty Images

• Scientists: humans are rapidly turning oceans into warm, acidifying basins hostile to life -- A new UN report warns changes to the oceans this century will be “unprecedented.”

• Oil from capsized ship washes ashore along the Georgia coast

• A lost continent has been found under Europe

• Egg roll: Over 136K eggs fall off semitrailer onto roadway

• Man who faked being teen doctor has been freed from prison -- Surgical clinician cannot be far behind

• Last, but not least -- It turns out money can kind of buy happiness after all

[Cupid Stunt]

Quote

Kitty Redstone said yesterday in Getting to Genoa You:

omg @Cupid Stunt those thumbcat videos are hilarious.  My husband and I have often joked that the only thing keeping one of our cats in the house is his lack of opposable thumbs.  He tries so hard to turn the doorknob.

I'm convinced cats are very busy doing all sorts of things while we're at work, distracted by life, zoning out in front of our devices.

We had a polydactyl grey tabby named Pickles:

^Helping Mr.Stunt.

One morning I had to return to the house and caught Pickles feeding herself kibble with her left paw. She picked up another morsel, was surprised to see me, dropped the kibble back in the bowl and proceeded to eat normally. I never saw my thumbcat pick up anything with her paws again, but I suspected she flossed her teeth, thumbed through catalogs and magazines, peeled grapes (Pickles favorite treat), used the remote to watch National Geographic and Animal Planet.

[jpagan05]

For Days fans, hubs works as a concierge and waited on James Franzo. He said he was funny- talked about "f-ing around" and doing voice-overs. He apparently has recently had a heart transplant! He's only 48- yikes! 

[Snaporaz]

How is Thing2 doing, Cupid?  Is he showing off his new scar?

Pickles sounds amazing and hilarious!  But she ate grapes?  I thought grapes were toxic to cats and dogs?  Maybe it's just raisins?   

Edited September 27, 2019 by Snaporaz

[Cupid Stunt]

2 hours ago, Snaporaz said:

How is Thing2 doing, Cupid?  Is he showing off his new scar?   

He's been getting along. The checkup today went well and he plans to move back to Alky-traz after classes Friday. He has a three small sutures through his navel -- Not grisly at all.

Sadly, Nana and her housekeeper are returning home on Friday too. It's a luxury to come home to cold cocktails, a hot meal and all the laundry done.

Quote

Pickles sounds amazing and hilarious!  But she ate grapes?  I thought grapes were toxic to cats and dogs?  Maybe it's just raisins? 

Pickles was a sweet kitty. Cuddly and affectionate. She took up residence on our patio as a stray kitten, and simply moved in.

She loved vegetables and some fruits. I had heard grapes were bad for cats, but she never had an issue. 

[Cupid Stunt]

• Mattel just launched a gender-inclusive doll line

• Is this the most important century in human history? -- A philosophy argument about the critical importance of our present era.

• MacArthur Foundation Announces 26 ‘Genius’ Grant Winners

• Going back to the moon could cost $30 billion. It might be worth it. -- If we collect more moon rocks, we could unlock secrets about the Earth, the moon, and the solar system.

• 36 years ago, one man saved us from world-ending nuclear war -- On September 26, 1983, Stanislav Petrov saved the world.

• Why the usual smears don’t work on Greta Thunberg -- She keeps the focus on science.

• Another global climate strike is coming Friday. These kids aren’t giving up. -- Greta Thunberg is targeting the airline industry this time.

• ‘We’re all in big trouble’: Climate panel sees a dire future

• Volunteers conserve vulnerable sea turtles in remote Panama

• California farm region faces furry new threat: Nutrias

• Zimbabwe's water woes worsen as capital shuts down treatment plant

• Caltech gets $750M pledge for sustainability research

• At UC Berkeley, Brown, and Yale, students are fighting to keep Palantir off campus over its ICE contracts -- In recent days, the data analytics company has been all but forced to drop events and programs at UC Berkeley and Brown, where it has recruited in the past. 

• The 3rd parent sentenced in the college admissions scam gets 4 months in prison

• Annual health insurance costs hit record high above $20,000

• High Rates Of Perinatal Insurance Churn Persist After The ACA

• Flu season is coming -- We have almost 94% compliance with our corporate-sponsored flu shots for employees.

• Cashing in on dementia patients: drugmaker to pay $116 million in fraud settlement

Faux-meat products are making a big marketing push:

• He left Beyond Meat to start a company that goes beyond meatless burgers

• McDonald's is teaming up with Beyond Meat to roll out a veggie burger at 28 locations

• Nestlé's Plant-Based ‘Awesome Burger' Is The Latest Faux Meat Burger To Enter The Ring -- Looks like there's gonna be some beef in the plant-based market

• Everything You've Ever Wondered About Meatless Meat, Explained -- Find the Impossible Burger impossible to understand? Don't know where exactly Beyond Beef is going to take you? Now that these plant-based meats are finally available in grocery stores, it's time to ask (and answer) some questions.

• It's National Chocolate Milk Day! -- Moo.

• “Good taste” is all about class anxiety -- Having three kinds of kale in the supermarket and the rise of celebrity chefs can be traced back to our lack of social mobility.

• Income inequality grows to its highest level in 50 years -- The areas with the most income inequality last year were coastal places with large amounts of wealth including Washington D.C., New York and Connecticut

• House passes cannabis-banking bill, but getting Senate’s OK still looks tricky -- House had been expected to back the SAFE Banking Act in its vote

• N.J. teacher faces discipline over 'they're Mexican' post about missing child, Dulce Alavez -- "They're Mexican, it's their culture. They don't supervise their children like we do," the teacher wrote regarding the 5-year-old's disappearance from a park.

• Millions of dollars are missing. The sheriff is dead. A small Virginia town wants answers.

• In Michigan steel towns, tariffs meant to revive industry cost jobs

• Creator of the 'labradoodle' says inventing the breed is his 'life's regret'

• Safety chain to come off Uluru as rock climb closes in Australia

• The Beatles' Abbey Road Turns 50: Classic Track-By-Track Review

[Cupid Stunt]

Robert Hunter, Grateful Dead Lyricist, Dies at 78

Robert Hunter, the lyricist, poet and mystical seeker who wrote some of the most beloved songs by the Grateful Dead, has died at age 78. Hunter's family announced his death in a statement, writing, "It is with great sadness we confirm our beloved Robert passed away yesterday night. He died peacefully at home in his bed, surrounded by love. His wife Maureen was by his side holding his hand." No cause of death was available at press time. 

"For his fans that have loved and supported him all these years, take comfort in knowing that his words are all around us, and in that way his is never truly gone. In this time of grief please celebrate him the way you all know how, by being together and listening to the music," the statement continued, ending with one of the most iconic lines to flow from Hunter's verdant mind from the Dead ballad "Ripple": "Let there be songs to fill the air."

Born Robert Burns on June 23, 1941, in Arroyo Grande, Calif., Hunter was one of the key figures in the burgeoning West Coast psychedelic rock movement, befriending future Dead singer/guitarist Jerry Garcia via their mutual love of bluegrass and jug band music and volunteering to be one of the subjects at Stanford University's legendary psychedelic testing lab. Though Hunter did not perform with the Dead, Garcia invited him to contribute lyrics to the band's mind-expanding albums beginning with 1969's Aoxomoxoa. His lyrics were so key to the band's musical identity that Hunter was inducted with the performing members -- past and present -- when the group was ushered into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994.

Hunter influenced the Grateful Dead's involvement with psychedelic drugs. Along with author Ken Kesey, he was an early volunteer test subject for LSD and other psychedelic chemicals in a Stanford University study that was later revealed to be sponsored by the CIA. Hunter later drew on the resulting hallucinations for the lyrics to some of his early songs, including "China Cat Sunflower." After mailing his writings to Garcia, he was invited to meet with the band in 1967, beginning a relationship that would last for decades.

If you've ever seen or uttered the phrase "what a long strange trip it's been" (from "Truckin'"), you have Hunter to thank for it. And while he performed and recorded on his own over the years, the press-shy poet was best known for writing the lyrics to such classic Dead tracks as "Uncle John's Band," "China Cat Sunflower," "Friend of the Devil," "Casey Jones," "Scarlet Begonias," "Box of Rain," "Wharf Rat" and the Dead's late-period biggest hit, 1987's "Touch of Gray," most of them sung by musical soul mate Garcia.

Hunter shaped the Grateful Dead as much as any of its musicians, giving a band known for psychedelic improvisation a lyrical voice that ranged from aphoristic to deliberately cryptic. The songs he helped write for Workingman's Dead, like "Casey Jones" and "Uncle John's Band," evoke a mythic America, while "Box of Rain" and "Ripple" from American Beauty have an almost oracular quality — they can be quoted in high school yearbooks, but also stand up to deep reading.

A performing musician as well as a lyricist, Hunter released two well-regarded solo albums on Round Records, a label co-founded by Garcia, and several more on Relix Records. He rarely toured and preferred to stay behind the scenes, but when the Dead was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1994, he joined the other members onstage — the only nonperformer to do so.

"As much as anyone, he defined in his words what it meant to be the Grateful Dead," wrote bassist Phil Lesh after hearing of Hunter's death. "His lyrics, ranging from old border ballads to urban legend, Western narratives and beyond, brought into sharp focus what was implicit in our music."

Hunter released a number of solo albums, including 1974's Tales of the Great Rum Runners and 1975's Tiger Rose, later collaborating with other musicians including Bob Dylan, Jim Lauderdale, Los Lobos, Steve Kimock and Bruce Hornsby in the years after the Dead called it quits in 1995 following Garcia's death. He also released a translation of Austrian poet Rilke's Duino Elegies in 1987, as well as collections of his own poetry, Night Cadre (1991), Idiot's Delight (1992) and 1993's lyric collection, A Box of Rain: Lyrics: 1965-1993.

His lyrics often read like mysical poetry, telling ambitious tales of mythical American figures -- miners, gamblers, pioneers -- searching for an elusive truth behind the mystery of life. But sometimes they also just told a story of opening your eyes to the wonder of the universe all around us. "Look out of any window/ Any morning, any evening, any day/ Maybe the sun is shining/ Birds are winging or/ Rain is falling from a heavy sky/ What do you want me to do/ To do for you to see you through?" he wrote in "Ripple."

"For this is all a dream we dreamed/ One afternoon long ago." 

"The songs were about other worlds, other times, other places than most of the audience had ever experienced," says guitarist Warren Haynes, who joined the Dead when they re-formed following Garcia's death in 1995. "They're not just songs, they're stories, and they took place not in the here and now, but in some place that requires imagination."

[Cupid Stunt]

Climate change environmental teen activist Greta Thunberg takes part in a climate strike march in Montreal, Quebec, Canada September 27, 2019. REUTERS/Andrej Ivanov

• Children march in second week of climate strikes

• Climate movement now 'too loud to handle' for critics, Greta Thunberg says

• Air travel is a huge contributor to climate change. A new global movement wants you to be ashamed to fly. -- Should you?

• Don’t want to read privacy policies? This AI tool will do it for you. -- If you take a minute to teach this AI, it’ll teach you something in turn.

• Xbox and Playstation manipulate their marketplaces — and customers — just like Google, Amazon, and Apple -- A new study shows that it’s not just search giants that are controlling what products you see.

• Launch of Facebook's Libra could be delayed over regulatory concerns: executive

• An AI learned to play hide-and-seek. The strategies it came up with on its own were astounding. -- A new release from OpenAI shows how complex behavior emerges.

• A US charity tries something new: letting poor kids choose their donors instead -- For decades, Western sponsors picked foreign kids to help. What if kids picked them instead?

• A new monument will honor the victims of a century-old racist massacre. Some say it's not where it should be

• Metallica cancels tour dates after singer James Hetfield enters rehab again

• Octopus Dreaming

• The biggest Second Amendment case to reach the Supreme Court in a decade -- Gun control supporters are desperate and have taken drastic steps to get the Supreme Court to dismiss the case.

• AP photographer wounded during protest

• More research finds “stand your ground” laws lead to more homicides -- States pass “stand your ground” laws to boost public safety. Studies show the laws do the opposite.

• THC vape products may be the main culprit in the mysterious lung illness outbreak -- 77 percent of vaping lung injury patients in a national study reported using THC.

• There’s a community of DIY vapers who mix their own flavors and more are joining -- State and federal lawmakers have proposed bans on flavored e-cigarette products.

• After WeWork debacle, IPO market slams brakes on unprofitable companies

• The last peep show in Las Vegas

• Barricades and books in restive Kashmir neighborhood

• U.S. agents raid genetic testing labs, charge 35 in Medicare fraud probe

• 'Used and dehumanized': Dozens of boys found chained in Nigeria

• The Jeffrey Epstein investigation was more expansive than previously thought, documents show

• As prosecutors go after Epstein's alleged co-conspirators, the line between accomplice and victim may be blurred

• Chinese relatives marry each other 23 times in two weeks in alleged scam

• Growing up intersex in a country where it is believed to be bad luck

• Spanish Court Approves Moving Body of Franco From Mausoleum -- Spain’s highest court approved the government’s plan to exhume the body of former dictator Francisco Franco from a monumental mausoleum and rebury him in a more modest cemetery, rejecting an appeal by Franco’s family.

• 6 Native leaders on what it would look like if the US observed its treaties -- The US has signed hundreds of treaties with Indigenous peoples. Here’s what would happen if the government actually honored them.

• She’d lived on this historically black D.C. block for 40 years. Now she was being pushed out.

[valleycliffe]

[lovemesomejoolery]

16 hours ago, valleycliffe said:

This is pretty amazing!

What freaks me out more, though, is knowing that someone out there actually was smart enough or bored enough to come up with these!

[boes]

Has anyone heard from Pearlite?  

Come back, Pearlite!

[peacheslatour]

18 minutes ago, boes said:

Has anyone heard from Pearlite?  

Come back, Pearlite!

Pearlite and AngelKitty where are you?

[pearlite]

I'm here, kids!

What a filthy fall so far though. Bad start-up to the semester,

And PLL [now teaching as well as PhD student--insanely stressed[ with gigantic abscessed tooth to be dug out of jaw [emerg visit and all, still not de-toothed, but antibiotic'd].

Plus I've got cataract laser whatever Tuesday--they tell me it's no big deal, but I'm chicken. So right now, typing takes me ages, driving to school is strictly Jesus Take the Wheel, and I'm just about up to my limit.

Sorry to bitch. But thank you so much for caring!

[peacheslatour]

11 minutes ago, pearlite said:

I'm here, kids!

What a filthy fall so far though. Bad start-up to the semester,

And PLL [now teaching as well as PhD student--insanely stressed[ with gigantic abscessed tooth to be dug out of jaw [emerg visit and all, still not de-toothed, but antibiotic'd].

Plus I've got cataract laser whatever Tuesday--they tell me it's no big deal, but I'm chicken. So right now, typing takes me ages, driving to school is strictly Jesus Take the Wheel, and I'm just about up to my limit.

Sorry to bitch. But thank you so much for caring!

Hey, so sorry about Baby's tooth. OW! I've heard the laser thing is no biggie too. You'll be fine and think how better you'll be able to see!

[boes]

3 hours ago, pearlite said:

I'm here, kids!

What a filthy fall so far though. Bad start-up to the semester,

And PLL [now teaching as well as PhD student--insanely stressed[ with gigantic abscessed tooth to be dug out of jaw [emerg visit and all, still not de-toothed, but antibiotic'd].

Plus I've got cataract laser whatever Tuesday--they tell me it's no big deal, but I'm chicken. So right now, typing takes me ages, driving to school is strictly Jesus Take the Wheel, and I'm just about up to my limit.

Sorry to bitch. But thank you so much for caring!

It all sounds like a pain in the rear fall so far and with PPL's tooth and your eyes, I completely get why your stress is thicker than the leaves on the ground.  

Grip that wheel, peer intensely, and let yourself off the hook for EVERYTHING.  

I had the cataract surgery laser thing and it was miraculous.  I bet it will be that way for you, too.

Good luck, with all of it!

[Cupid Stunt]

3 hours ago, pearlite said:

I'm here, kids!

What a filthy fall so far though. Bad start-up to the semester,

And PLL [now teaching as well as PhD student--insanely stressed[ with gigantic abscessed tooth to be dug out of jaw [emerg visit and all, still not de-toothed, but antibiotic'd].

Plus I've got cataract laser whatever Tuesday--they tell me it's no big deal, but I'm chicken. So right now, typing takes me ages, driving to school is strictly Jesus Take the Wheel, and I'm just about up to my limit.

Sorry to bitch. But thank you so much for caring!

49 minutes ago, boes said:

It all sounds like a pain in the rear fall so far and with PPL's tooth and your eyes, I completely get why your stress is thicker than the leaves on the ground.  

Grip that wheel, peer intensely, and let yourself off the hook for EVERYTHING.  

I had the cataract surgery laser thing and it was miraculous.  I bet it will be that way for you, too.

Good luck, with all of it!

Raspberries on the new semester. 

Cosign on the laser surgery, Pearlite. Mom and Nana had it done, and it gave them back their lives. It's godsend how people can be helped by laser surgery.

Gentle hugs to Pearlitelite. Dental surgery is no laughs … er, fun. 

Praying for the Pearlite household.

[pearlite]

Thanks for all the wishes and prayers!

Will check back in when typing is less of a pain,..

[Cupid Stunt]

• In the medical desert of rural America, one doctor for 11,000 square miles. "Out here there's just me."

• How 3 Native American tribes are fighting to protect sacred land from logging, oil pipelines, and a billion-dollar telescope

• How a tuxedoed sommelier wound up homeless in California

• Mystery woman showed off her dazzling voice at a Metro station and video goes viral

• Do you make under $35,500 a year? Here's why you may be owed mandatory overtime pay soon

• Companies Are Using a Depression-Era Law to Escape Tariffs and It’s Costing Them -- Tariffs are hurting U.S. companies’ bottom lines. Free Trade Zones, a 1930s rule which they can use to shield themselves from those costs, require expensive legal help. One Michigan manufacturer called it “a no-win situation.”

• Record tariff award over Airbus aid could fuel trade tensions

• Burning issue: Indonesia fires put palm oil under scrutiny

• After 20 years in development, a new red apple might be your favorite fruit -- My sister Bea's orchard is a beta-site for Cosmic Crisp apples. Good eating and not a bad baking apple either. We made pies three different ways (sliced raw fruit, par cooked slices, cooked through for canning) this afternoon -- Par cooked was the best result; you can control the moisture. 

• I CAN HAS CAT PHOTOS? -- You can thank this mid-century cat photographer for your favorite cat memes

• VSCO girls and how teen culture goes viral -- Why adults can’t stop hearing about VSCO ap girls.

• You can now buy incredibly expensive, incredibly stupid CBD-infused athleisure wear

• Greek fashion firms revitalize centuries-old silk tradition

• Rent the Runway customers are reporting horror stories of canceled dress deliveries and customer service breakdowns -- Hundreds of Rent the Runway customers say they didn’t get their dresses on time. The company is blaming a warehouse upgrade for the delivery delays. 

• Rent the Runway stops accepting new customers as operations melt down -- The billion dollar startup has been plagued by warehouse issues, resulting in tons of delayed orders.

• Giant planet around tiny star 'should not exist'

• Climate change action: We can't all be Greta, but your choices have a ripple effect

• Our young girls are bearing the burden of climate action. But should they be?

• More violence grips Hong Kong ahead of China’s National Day

• China gave away over 620,000 TVs ahead of its big military parade

Edited October 2, 2019 by Cupid Stunt

[peacheslatour]

That utterly elegant woman singing, I hope they never find out who she is.

[Snaporaz]

Feel better soon, @pearlite!

You, too, PLL!

[Snaporaz]

And Happy Rosh Hashanah and Navaratri to our friends celebrating today!

Edited September 29, 2019 by Snaporaz

[jpagan05]

I DM'd AngelKitty last week- nothing. Is there any other way to check up on her?

Sorry for your stress @pearlite. My landlord just had his second eye done. He didn't even have anesthesia, only slight discomfort for about 24 hours after. He's worn glasses his entire life and now doesn't need them anymore! He says he still "feels" them on his face. Good luck!

[Cupid Stunt]

1 hour ago, Snaporaz said:

Vampire Cat Monk!

Of Monk and Bean fame.

It's always Halloween for the critters at Monk and Bean.

[Cupid Stunt]

busbee, Grammy-Nominated Songwriter and Producer, Dies at 43

busbee — whose real name was Michael James Ryan — worked with a slew of top artists in country music, including Maren Morris, Garth Brooks, Lady Antebellum and Keith Urban. He co-wrote Florida Georgia Line's "H.O.L.Y." and multiple songs on Urban's album Ripcord and Morris' debut album, Hero.

busbee said he started out in the jazz world, studying the genre at William Paterson University in Wayne, New Jersey, before switching to country.

"I was totally on the jazz trajectory," he said. "That was my paradigm for all things music." 

busbee made the switch to country on the recommendation of a fellow songwriter, but also wound up working with a slew of pop artists, including Kelly Clarkson, Pink, Shakira and Christina Aguilera. 

If there’s one word to describe Mike Busbee’s songwriting ability, it’s “elasticity.” In 2014, the California native helped craft Little Big Town’s “Quit Breakin’ Up With Me,” slapstick honky tonk with a dash of Sugar Ray, and 5 Seconds Of Summer’s “Don’t Look Down,” a full-throttle zap of punk. Last year, he was more audacious, earning a credit on “Said No One Ever,” a catchy, rope-a-dope single from Jana Kramer, and “Don’t Look,” an Usher/Martin Garrix collaboration that represented the R&B singer’s latest conquering of the dance world.

Though busbee (he most commonly goes by his last name, without capitalization) has been bouncing between country and pop for years – his first major placement came in 2007 with Rascal Flatts’ “Better Now” – 2016 has brought a new surge of success. You’ll find him listed on several blockbuster projects emerging from Nashville this year, with three writing credits on Keith Urban’s Ripcord, an album that exists blithely free of genre, and four more on Maren Morris’s intrepid debut, Hero, due next month. (He also produced or co-produced the whole album.) In addition, busbee co-wrote Florida Georgia Line’s new single, “H.O.L.Y.,” which recently made the third greatest jump in the history of Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart, hurdling from No. 39 to No. 1.

The ease with which busbee navigates Nashville and L.A. is more surprising when you consider his unorthodox background. “I was totally on the jazz trajectory,” he tells Rolling Stone Country. “That was my paradigm for all things music.” His sister’s hair metal CDs and his father’s country classics (Willie Nelson, Hank Williams) gurgled in the background, but busbee’s own interests led him to study jazz at William Paterson University in Wayne, New Jersey. “At the time, it was one of the top jazz schools in the world,” says busbee, whose collaborators in school included acclaimed trombonists Conrad Herwig, Steve Turre and Robin Eubanks.

busbee didn’t graduate from William Paterson, instead returning home to the Bay Area and landing a job at a studio. That’s where his non-jazz musical education began in earnest – starting with Stevie Wonder and Sting. “That typical teenage period of going through all music and figuring out what you like and eating it up, that happened 10 years later,” he explains. The delay was beneficial: “At this point, because it wasn’t as attached to my identity, I could listen to whatever I wanted to listen to and just eat it up. I spent that period just studying and studying and listening and listening.”

Along with his rabid musical consumption, busbee began picking up more instruments: guitar, bass, “kind of” the drums. He describes his approach in this period as no holds barred. “Whatever you need to do to get the thing done – you find the program, you figure out how to play, get your friend to play, find a sample.”

After stints assisting in L.A. studios, he ventured out on his own. “What do you need?” busbee says. “I’ll make you a record. Co-write? Great. Produce, mix, engineer, whatever.” By his estimate, he did this for at least five years, working six days a week, 12 hours a day.

In search of a steadier routine that would enable him to raise a family, he tried out Nashville on the recommendation of Greg Becker, another writer he met in L.A. The gamble paid off when Dann Huff – guitarist, songwriter, and producer for a slew of country’s biggest stars – signed him to a publishing deal. “Before I had any success, he was betting on me,” busbee says of Huff, “and that helped me get into rooms that were harder to get in.”

“I started out and still would consider myself a pop writer,” he continues. “But I’m very grateful to come up in the Nashville way of doing things – they have an incredibly high bar and talent level. One of the beautiful things about that system is that you get to write with so many people, and people are typically gracious [enough] to take the chance on you. If they think you’re really talented, you’re in – even if you haven’t had a hit for a minute, because that happens to everybody. Pop is a little more like, ‘Well, what have you done lately?'”

busbee has no qualms about his transition from jazz into a more commercial sphere of songwriting. “I don’t mind that I don’t get to use the breadth of my harmonic understanding in most of what I do every day,” he notes. The opposite in fact – he finds the strictures stimulating. “The certain parameters that I work in mean I have to be somewhat more creative,” he adds. “When I made jazz, it was like, ‘Here’s a canvas, it’s 20 feet by 20 feet, you can use any brush, any kind of paint, any color, anything – even not paint!’ With country and pop, it’s like, ‘Here’s one brush, one color, and a six inch by six inch canvas: make me feel something.’ I love the challenge of doing that.”

He’s not alone in this transition: there’s a storied tradition of jazz musicians paying the bills as sidemen or jumping to become producers in more commercially viable genres. Many prominent examples exist in the world of R&B, rather than country – Quincy Jones, known initially as a jazz arranger, famously oversaw records from Michael Jackson; James Mtume, who played with Miles Davis in the Seventies, aided a stream of soul singers (and had solo success with “Juicy Fruit”); Marcus Miller, one of Davis’s late-period collaborators, played bass on many of the definitive Luther Vandross records. More recently, the group Lake Street Dive flaunted jazz conservatory educations as they made pop, and Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp A Butterfly was lauded for its jazz contributors.

busbee’s maverick background surely helped him gravitate towards artists pushing country’s boundaries. One of the songs he co-wrote on Keith Urban’s Ripcord features the seminal disco guitarist Nile Rodgers and the rapper Pitbull; another, “Your Body,” evokes the mid-Eighties sounds of Jan Hammer and Phil Collins.

Maren Morris’s Hero channels a different era of pop-friendly irrepressibility – a song like “Sugar” suggests the breezy guitar sheen of the Clinton era. “You dream you get the chance for a new artist like that to come across your radar,” busbee says of Morris. “We just got put together in a co-write, she was making the rounds in Nashville writing with different people. . . She was singing her own music, and it was world class. I was super freaked out – in a good way.”

Another set of serendipitous events led to Florida Georgia Line recording “H.O.L.Y.,” which shares an organ-smeared, soul-leaning quality with Morris’s biggest hit, “My Church.” busbee did not expect that the track would end up on country radio. “There was talk of Justin Bieber doing the song, and we had actually recorded it with another artist,” busbee explains. “Word came out that FGL were really into it – honestly we would’ve never thought to pitch that to them. We wrote it in L.A.; the other two writers are pop writers predominantly.

“Sometimes it just takes a process,” he continues. “Florida Georgia Line was the right home for that song.”

By hopping between genres so readily, busbee has helped make old borders increasingly permeable. But despite his achievements, he still sees his trajectory as a happy accident. “I’m from California and used to play jazz trombone,” he declares. “I woke up a certain amount of years later, and I have an amazing wife and two beautiful girls, and I get to write songs for a living? I’m like, whose life did I hijack?”

Edited September 30, 2019 by Cupid Stunt

[Cupid Stunt]

• Hundreds mourn 'dead' glacier at funeral in Switzerland

• The best slide deck about climate change comes from a Danish-Icelandic artist

• A single tea bag can leak billions of pieces of microplastic into your brew

• Sneakers are set to outsell “fashion” footwear in the US for the first time

• Washington idle as ransomware ravages cities big and small -- Lawmakers have offered few ideas on how to respond to the wave of ransom-seeking cyberattacks that have struck at least 80 state and local government agencies.

• Liquid vs. Powder Detergent: Which Is Better to Use?

• The 'Chicken Noodle Soup challenge' is a thing now

• Thieves steal 50,000 apples from an Indiana orchard

• Food52, the recipes + cookware site founded by a former New York Times food columnist, is gobbled up -- The Chernin Group is buying a majority stake in Amanda Hesser’s startup for $83 million.

• How novelist Stieg Larsson may have cracked the unsolved murder of a prime minister

• Five Years Ago, 43 Students Vanished. The Mystery, and the Pain, Remain

• The Fight to Make Meaning Out of a Massacre -- Pittsburgh’s synagogue shooting was the deadliest attack on Jews on American soil. Over the past year, community members have struggled to do something constructive with their tragedy. But they have been divided on whether politics should guide their reaction.

• Tech Companies Are Quietly Phasing Out a Major Privacy Safeguard -- More and more companies are failing to issue transparency reports to tell consumers how much of their information governments have demanded.

• The fight over Joker and the new movie’s “dangerous” message, explained -- Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker is the subject of a furious debate. The movie hasn’t even been released yet.

• I Used to Clean Houses. Then I Hired a Maid. -- I know how grueling the job can be, and I swore I’d never ask someone to do it for me. But then I found myself in need of help.

• Tokyo subway’s humble duct-tape typographer

• Why Don’t I Read All My Books?  -- The Ghosts on Her Shelves

• ‘It’s a superpower’: how walking makes us healthier, happier and brainier -- Neuroscientist Shane O’Mara believes that plenty of regular walking unlocks the cognitive powers of the brain like nothing else. He explains why you should exchange your gym kit for a pair of comfy shoes and get strolling

• The Serendipity Engine -- I’ve always liked the concept of serendipity, even more since being involved in the early days of coworking, where we used the term “accelerated serendipity” quite a bit. The idea that, through the creation of a welcoming space and a diversified and thriving community, you could accelerate (or concentrate) “the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way.” (Oxford English Dictionary) So it’s probably a mix of Baader-Meinhof effect and well, serendipity, that this article grabbed my attention. In The Serendipity Engine, Gianfranco Chicco explains that he quit his job and will use the time to purposefully built up serendipity, seek fields he knows little about, learn new things, read an eclectic mix of books, be open to meeting strangers, visit new cities, etc. “Slowing down and renewing the commitment to a series of personal rituals.” -- Tempting.

• Iconic Mexican singer José José has died at 71

[Cupid Stunt]

15 hours ago, peacheslatour said:

That utterly elegant woman singing, I hope they never find out who she is.

It's hard to remain anonymous for long in LA … LA's mystery subway singer tells her story after mesmerizing serenade goes viral

[peacheslatour]

1 hour ago, Cupid Stunt said:

It's hard to remain anonymous for long in LA … LA's mystery subway singer tells her story after mesmerizing serenade goes viral

Then I hope she gets a home.

[jpagan05]

Awww, the newscaster's voice was cracking toward the end of the story.

[Cupid Stunt]

4 hours ago, peacheslatour said:

Then I hope she gets a home.

8 minutes ago, jpagan05 said:

Awww, the newscaster's voice was cracking toward the end of the story.

It's ghastly that with the theft of her violin she lost her ability to pay her rent and lost her home..

[jpagan05]

Totally! Like losing an appendage if that's what keeps you going. 

I love that a police officer took the video. She's a lovely looking woman. I have a feeling she's going to be okay.

[Cupid Stunt]

Lord hear our prayers for Your faithful servant Pearlite. Guide the hands of her surgeon and staff, and bestow Your mercy for a complete recovery from her operation; for You are the Physician of our souls and bodies, and to You do we send up Glory: to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Both now and forever, and to the ages of ages. Amen.

[Cupid Stunt]

• Controversial wild horse plan headed to Senate floor

• In restored forests, hope for world beset by climate change

• Greta Thunberg isn't alone. Meet some other young activists who are leading the environmentalist fight

• Shale Boom Is Slowing Just When the World Needs Oil Most

• Amazon's Tembe paint bodies for rituals and war

• He Was the NBA's Best Ref. Then He Went to a Catholic Seminary. 

• New chapter opens in Pennsylvania in fight over suing church

• In Florida, Push for Strict New Gun Ban

• 58 crosses are back on the Las Vegas Strip on the anniversary of America's deadliest modern shooting

• Jury convicts ex-police officer who fatally shot neighbor

• Full Coverage: Botham Jean and Mistaken Apartment Shooting

• Video captures bridge collapsing in Taiwan

• UPS gets approval to become a drone airline

• Verbal autopsies used in push to better track global deaths

• China is accused of harvesting tens of thousands of organs to serve a thriving global market

• Ousman Darboe could be deported any day. His story is a common one for black immigrants. -- Growing up black and undocumented in a heavily policed neighborhood is often a ticket to the prison-to-deportation pipeline.

• Court: No statute of limitations in Dutch colonial crimes

• Watchdog finds DEA was ‘slow to respond’ to opioid epidemic

• The FDA tried to ban flavors years before the vaping outbreak. Top Obama officials rejected the plan

• Health care is getting more and more expensive, and low-wage workers are bearing more of the cost -- Is the rapidly rising cost of employer-sponsored health insurance sustainable?

• WeWork and Juul show that startup “valuations” can be totally meaningless -- “That’s the inside story of Silicon Valley.”

• Elon Musk broke US labor laws on Twitter -- An administrative judge says Tesla tried to sabotage efforts to unionize factory workers in California.

• Tyler Perry believes his studio rivals Hollywood’s best -- It's called the Winfrey model: Labor laws not enforced, no union representation or scale wages for African-American actors and technicians, while producing a cheap, manipulative, mediocre product. Congratulations for pursuing the American Dream; enriching yourself while selling crap to suckers.

• Honest entertainment -- The true tale of a bona fide, one-of-a-kind “Lobster Girl” -- Decades ago, I could have been a famous “freak.” So I enrolled in sideshow school.

• How the power suit lost its power -- The suit was once the uniform of the powerful and a requirement for every man. Now, people mostly wear suits when they’re in trouble. -- Just because you wrote this article in sweatpants and a 2003 Aerosmith tee shirt doesn't mean other sections of the economy are not wearing formal office wear. I'll be wearing suits/suit separates for the foreseeable future or until corporate awards me a Viking funeral.

• Dancehall artist known as Louie Rankin dies Canada car crash

• Jessye Norman, Regal American Soprano, Is Dead at 74 -- A multiple Grammy Award winner, she was a towering figure on operatic, concert and recital stages.

Edited October 1, 2019 by Cupid Stunt

[OhioSongbird]

Any word yet from AngelKitty?

[pearlite]

Thanks for the good wishes and CS thanks for the prayer!

Op went fine—more of a light show than anything.

i can sorta type on my phone. Will return in a couple of days.

[Cupid Stunt]

• The final home designed by Frank Lloyd Wright will go up for auction

• Bar Rescue’s Jon Taffer explains why experiences make us want to buy stuff -- The host of the popular show has been talking about retail experiences for 40 years. Now he’s in the hard seltzer business.

• Slowing Trade Hits Global Manufacturing

• California to let college athletes make money, defying NCAA

• How a brief socialist takeover in North Dakota gave residents a public bank -- North Dakota’s government-owned bank has been a celebrated institution for a century. Now California might get one, too.

• Facebook’s code of silence has been breached. It’s amazing it stayed intact this long. -- Mark Zuckerberg’s famously quiet all-staff meetings are now out in the public eye.

• Is eating beef healthy? The new fight raging in nutrition science, explained. -- How researchers came to a controversial conclusion about the health effects of meat.

• How a button became one of the greatest #MeToo victories -- Inside hotel workers’ fight for their own safety.

• R. Kelly's lawyer is complaining that the singer can visit with only one of his girlfriends at a time

• Report: As 100,000 Overdosed, DEA Allowed for 400% Increase in Production of Oxycodone

• Johnson & Johnson reaches $20.4 million settlement in huge opioid case

• Opioid settlement encourages sale of more opioids, critics say

• Health debate over vaping

• Antarctic iceberg breaks off: Huge D28 berg breaks off Amery Ice Shelf

I've been trying to suss out the number of visitors to state and national parks that wander off the beaten path and get lost for days, attacked by wild animals, fall into canyons, die in thermal vents, ignore warnings and barriers to get the best selfie. None of these articles explain the phenomenon fully, because in spite of the media coverage, it keeps happening with increasing regularity.

• The 10 Most Deadly National Parks -- Outside Magazine pulled records from January 2006 to September 2016 on where, how, and why park visitors are dying. Here’s what they found.

• Crisis in our national parks: how tourists are loving nature to death -- As thrill seekers and Instagrammers swarm public lands, reporting from eight sites across America shows the scale of the threat

• A woman is hospitalized after being rammed by bison in Utah State Park. The friend she was hiking with had been gored in June

• Man severely burned after fall into thermal water at Old Faithful

• Woman sneaks into Bronx Zoo's lion den, appears to taunt animal

• United flight diverted to free passenger trapped in bathroom

• Catering cart causes chaos at Chicago airport, but American Airlines employee saves the day

• Bees swarm airplane -- and have to be removed with water cannons

• Drone finds fugitive living in cave after 17 years on the run

• Fugitive tries to flee Australia on jet ski. And almost reaches Papua New Guinea

Hello Baby … 

• The legendary American car that vanished for 30 years -- The Shelby Daytona Cobra Coupe's extraordinary story includes beating Ferrari, bursting up in flames, and spending three decades in a storage unit.

• Is your ID good enough to travel? It may not be next year.

• Tree thieves tried to burn a bee nest. They started a forest fire that ravaged 3,300 acres of protected land, feds say.

Edited October 2, 2019 by Cupid Stunt

[deirdra]

Did the woman who snuck into Bronx Zoo's lion den get the idea from watching Devon Hamilton's early days on Y&R?  Will she get a large lion tattoo to remember her bravery? (stupidity).

[Cupid Stunt]

• Florida Bar Pulls Down Dollar Bill Decor to Collect $15,000 for Bahamas Hurricane Dorian Relief

• A Doctor Who Prescribed 500,000 Doses of Opioids Is Sent to Prison for 40 Years -- See you never Mofo

• The absurd whiteness of America’s court system, in 2 charts

• How a study based on a typo made news everywhere and the retraction didn’t -- A paper arguing religious kids are less generous turned out to be the result of a typo.

• Chicago school accused of kicking 9-year-old out into the cold and reporting him missing

• Las Vegas massacre survivors, families reach $735 million settlement with MGM

• Why Your Used Shirts Are Destined for the Dump and Not the Recycling Center

• Forever 21 Underestimated Young Women -- Teens know they don’t need clothing stores.

• The rise of the celebrity beauty brand -- Lady Gaga, Rihanna, and Millie Bobby Brown all have makeup lines. Here’s why.

• Gigi Hadid Escorted a YouTuber Who Crashed the Chanel Show Off the Runway -- No one says no to Gigi.

• GM lays off 6,000 more workers as union strike continues

• An Early Bitcoin Millionaire Loses His ‘Love for the Industry’ -- Heartbreaking <sniff>

• Kidnapped Santa Cruz tech CEO is found dead

• WWII plane crashes in Connecticut

• A North Carolina man just won a $750,000 lawsuit after suing his wife's lover -- I've always wondered why this doesn't happen more often.

• Olympic sprinter Allyson Felix just broke one of Usain Bolt's world records

• Why HR is powerless to effectively handle sexual harassment claims -- What happens after you report sexual harassment and hear nothing?

• This kite could harness more of the world's wind energy

• NASA discovered a black spot on Jupiter 2,200 miles long

• A 5-Year-Old Girl Went Missing From a Playground. What Happened?

• Baghdad protests: At least ‘10 dead and more than 200 injured’ as riot police open fire

• How to avoid wedding drama -- Whether you’re planning the event or attending, here’s how to handle plus-ones, drunken guests and a canceled wedding. -- "One word. Plastics."

• The 2 companies that place all those ads at the bottom of webpages are combining -- Taboola is buying Outbrain. -- And creating a marketing Godzilla.

• Are we winning the war on malaria?

• Jeffrey Epstein’s Start-up Made $200 Million During Economic Crisis After His Guilty Plea

• No, Vitamin C won’t cure your cold -- Just because it’s good for you doesn’t mean more is better.

• All of the 6-week abortion bans passed this year have now been blocked in court -- But the biggest threat to abortion might come from another place.

• Cities are considering safe injection sites. A federal judge just said they’re legal. -- Philadelphia and other US cities are pursuing safe injection sites. Here’s why.

Edited October 3, 2019 by Cupid Stunt

[Cupid Stunt]

On 9/30/2019 at 8:46 AM, Cupid Stunt said:

It's hard to remain anonymous for long in LA … LA's mystery subway singer tells her story after mesmerizing serenade goes viral

On 9/30/2019 at 10:25 AM, peacheslatour said:

Then I hope she gets a home.

‘Like a miracle’: Homeless woman’s viral subway opera performance may get her off the streets