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Twas for the good of my country I should be abroad I'm still worried about Jim Hudson. This is quite different. This takes place on a much less emotional plane. This took place at an inspection of an American army camp where they had the lady soldiers of the American army whose initials escape me for the moment. And there was an inspection and they were called upon to number. So these girls, all in their lovely uniforms, they numbered and it sounded like this, "One Two Three Four Five (deep voice)" At this "five", the sergeant's eyebrows lifted, and he said, "Would you say that again, number five." "Five" So he shipped this girl straight into the orderly room and spare searching questions were asked, and it was discovered that this girl was in fact a man. They got this man and they said, "What was the idea of enlisting in the women's army?" And he said, "Well, you see, I joined up in the men's army but I'm too small and they wouldn't have me." They said, "You can't just join up as a woman, you're a guy." He said, "Well, I wanted to fight, but I couldn't join the men's army, so I joined the woman's army. It was for the good of my country that I should be a broad." Denis Norden 580611b download at http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?2u8t887jui81dpy

Ask Well I've seen several menopause-oriented brands selling anti-aging estrogen creams for the face. Is there any science behind them? Hot flashes, night sweats and vaginal dryness are common symptoms of menopause. But the skin can undergo changes in midlife too, including sagging, thinning and becoming more dry. Estrogen is key to maintaining skin integrity, said Dr. Susan Massick, a dermatologist at the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. When estrogen levels dip during menopause, your skin can become thinner with less collagen and elasticity, potentially causing more dryness or wrinkling. Some companies sell estrogen-infused face creams and serums - over-the-counter or via prescription - that are supposed to prevent and reverse these changes. One doctor on Instagram said that using prescription vaginal estrogen cream on your face can increase collagen production and minimize dryness. While this use of estrogen cream "makes sense, in theory," Dr. Massick said, we need more research showing that it is safe and effective. In one review published in 2019, researchers analyzed the results of about two dozen studies. They involved menopausal and post-menopausal women who used topical estrogen - including in gels, creams, ointments and patches - on their faces, abdomen, buttocks, forearms and thighs. The authors concluded that it was "plausible" that estrogen could minimize wrinkles and improve skin dryness, texture and elasticity. However, the studies they reviewed had various limitations, including that they looked at small groups of women. And some of the review's authors were consultants for a skin care pharmaceutical company, presenting a conflict of interest. Dr. Massick said that we need more rigorous research. Estradiol, the active ingredient in vaginal estrogen creams that are prescribed for menopause-related vaginal dryness and pain during sex, is a potent and therapeutic form of estrogen, said Dr. Mary Jane Minkin, an OB-GYN at Yale Medicine. Some of her patients use it off label to treat dry and wrinkled skin on their faces, she said. But she doesn't encourage this use - and the dermatologists we spoke with didn't recommend it either. Estriol (a form of estrogen that is produced during pregnancy) and phytoestrogen (a plant compound that mimics estrogen in the body) are two ingredients often found in estrogen-based skin care products, Dr. Massick said. But the research on them is limited. Applying estrogen to the skin could cause irritation, and trying any new topical product could lead to an allergic reaction, rash or redness, said Dr. Jacqueline Watchmaker, a dermatologist in Scottsdale, Ariz. Estrogen could also worsen any dark patches and discoloration or make blood vessels more apparent, she added; or it could aggravate conditions Iike eczema and rosacea, said Dr. Debra Jaliman, a dermatologist in New York City. The biggest question surrounding topical estrogen, however, is how much of the hormone gets absorbed into the bloodstream. When used vaginally, Dr. Minkin said that only "minuscule" amounts of estrogen seem to be absorbed, so it stands to reason that the same rules would apply when using it on the face. But until more research is done, Dr. Massick suggested that women who have or are at higher risk of developing "hormone-sensitive conditions" - like breast, uterine or ovarian cancers, or polycystic ovary syndrome - should avoid using estrogen-based skin care products. Because of these potential safety concerns and the lack of evidence of benefit, Dr. Watchmaker and the other dermatologists recommended not using estrogen as skin care until more research is done. Prescription topical retinoids (like tretinoin) and over-the-counter retinol can increase collagen and elastin, a protein that strengthens and plumps the skin. They can also boost cell turnover, which helps brighten skin and smooth fine lines, Dr. Watchmaker said. Hyaluronic acid can help minimize dryness, she added. And antioxidants like vitamin C and niacinamide can reduce redness, improve discoloration and enhance skin texture, Dr.

On November 4, 2008, at just after 11 P.M., CNN called the presidential election for Barack Obama. The Obamas watched the returns with extended family at a hotel room near Chicago's Grant Park, the scene of a quickly growing Obama campaign rally. The densely packed crowds gathered there broke into cheers and dancing when news broadcasters announced his win. The elated throng was twice the size expected for the rally - roughly 240,000 people - when Obama finally took the stage at one in the morning. Few could know the lengths to which the Secret Service had gone to protect the president-elect for that memorable twenty-five-minute speech. The Service had installed two van-sized sheets of bulletproof glass - ten feet high and fifteen feet wide - on the right and left sides of Obama's lectern. Television viewers couldn't see the glass, but in person they were as obvious as a two-ton block of ice. The two-inch-thick plates were intended to shield Obama from the risk of snipers in the high-rises above the park. Agents tested the placement of the glass by taking up positions in apartments above and "firing" red laser beams at agents standing in for Obama. The airspace around the park had also been made a no-fly zone for the night. The supervisor overseeing protection for the event thanked the Obama campaign for instantly agreeing to a raft of extra precautions. "They never blinked when we told them we had to do the glass," the supervisor said. "They understood." That night, a large part of the country celebrated. But for Obama, the danger had ratcheted up exponentially, literally overnight. The Intelligence Division, which assessed threats to the president, immediately felt itself struggling to triage and assess a skyrocketing number of threats. Agents estimated that in the months immediately before and for several months after he took office, Obama received four times as many death threats as his predecessors - as many as thirty a day. The weekend after the election, at a Maine convenience store, a sign invited customers to join a betting pool on when Obama would be assassinated. "Let's hope we have a winner," the sign read. In Vay, Idaho, police found a sign on a tree offering a "free public hanging" of Obama. At North Carolina State University in Raleigh, anonymous artists had spray-painted KILL THAT NIGGER and SHOOT OBAMA in a tunnel that students used to cross the campus. Carol Leonnig "Zero Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Secret Service" (2021)

FAMILY At the end of my first trip to the West Coast I wound up, for some reason, in the Las Vegas jail. Cops had stopped me on my way home to my vibrating bed. When they'd asked for my name I had said, "Why do you ask?" After that things went real fast. So I found myself that night having dinner in the prison cafeteria. One of the convicts named Vinnie said, "Anyone want my fucking carrots?" in a tone that sounded more like "What asshole here likes carrots?" I jumped at the offer and said, "Oh sure, yeah, I love carrots," and at that moment I realized I was too enthusiastic. I was a carrot lover, and I had shown my weakness and my vulnerability. When Vinnie passed me his plate, the idea crossed my mind that nothing comes without consequences in any place, particularly that place. Later that night, smoke, soot and embers were floating up around my bunk, and I thought, My God, the whole place is on fire. I sat up in a panic and looked over the edge of my bunk, and there were Vinnie and his friend Frank making a little campfire under the empty bunk below me. They were trying to toast some bread they had stolen from dinner. They had rolled up the mattress so that the metal surface of the bottom bunk was exposed, and then they had lit a whole roll of toilet paper under the bunk to heat it up. The spongy white bread was lying like some strange artwork entitled "Wonder Bread on Gray Metal." I went to sleep that night thinking I had to make a real effort to get the hell out of there. Finally after seven days, my girlfriend back in New York managed to get money to a bondsman, and I was released, I got out of Vegas as fast as I could and headed straight for the Grand Canyon. I got there at sundown, perfect timing at last. The next morning I made my slow way down, deep into the bowels of Mother Earth. The hot, dry sun baked my newly freed body. I came upon a stream. It was crystal clear, a rushing transparency. I pulled off my shorts and slipped into the stream. Its shocking coldness made all parts of me come together and immediately be there. Then some part of me surprised another part by yelling out, "Oh my good Christ! Oh shit! Oh God, it's cold!" As I relaxed, I became all body wrapped in a transparent cocoon of rushing water. I lay there looking up at the massive rock walls. Here, I thought, I could lay to rest a part of me, let my raging past soar up and out of me. Above me, I sawall these ghosts. I saw Mom in her sundress and saddle shoes, stomping. I saw Dad spreading her ashes over the bay. I saw Vinnie and Frank, the two toast-cooking jailbirds, come out together from under my bunk bed, squinting and smiling in the sun. They all joined hands and danced a great boogie-woogie chain dance to heaven. Spalding Gray "Spalding Gray Stories Left To Tell" (2008)

Where the money came from has been argued about as much as anything in the Black Sox story, but the only plausible source is Arnold Rothstein. The other purported fixers were poseurs, or entered the conversation either too early or too late to have played a part. What little money made it into the hands of the ballplayers came from two Rothstein associates. Moreover, everyone mentioned in connection with the fix - gamblers from other cities mostly - had a direct and proven connection with Arnold Rothstein. And none of these men or groups of men had a connection with each other, except through Rothstein. Rothstein himself would always deny involvement. Those who charged that it was him, he pointed out, were up to their own necks in the scandal and looking to save them. When asked about the 1919 World Series, Rothstein always said his only involvement was betting on the White Sox and losing money. He made the case for his innocence under oath before the grand jury in 1920, and did it so convincingly that he was never indicted in the case. That was the way it was with Rothstein. In a criminal life that spanned more than a quarter century, he was never convicted of any crime. He had connections and charm and the best lawyers, and nothing ever stuck to him. Escaping culpability for his role in the 1919 Series fix may have been Rothstein's most famous dodge, but it wasn't his most remarkable. Earlier in 1919, he had shot three policemen in front of nineteen witnesses - and gotten away scot-free. He was overseeing a crap game in a West 57th Street apartment when, at two in the morning, there came a heavy rapping on the door and voices demanding to be let in. Rothstein had been robbed twice during private gambling evenings in the previous year and wasn't taking any chances this time. He responded to the knock by firing three shots through the closed door. Each one struck a New York City police detective. Three shots, three officers, three wounds. The officers weren't hurt badly, a shoulder wound and two flesh wounds in the arm. Rothstein was as solicitous as he could be. His limousine took the officers to the hospital. Knowing they were dealing with a man who had considerable pull with both the courts and city hall, the cops apologized, saying publicly that they understood gamblers were naturally wary of being robbed and that they should have been clearer about identifying themselves as police. Rothstein was indicted, but the case was dismissed because the policemen had not seen who had fired the shots, and all of the nineteen men in the room testified before the grand jury that they hadn't either. All but one denied he had even heard shots fired; another testified that he had seen a muzzle flash but didn't know who fired. Any man who can so deftly beat a felonious assault rap is too good to let himself be taken down by murky allegations about fixing some baseball games. History's best guess as to what it cost to fix the World Series - the cash actually paid to the seven players who took money for agreeing to be a part of the fix - was at most $80,000-$90,000. This was quite literally pocket money to Arnold Rothstein: at the height of his power and celebrity, he would often travel the streets of Manhattan with $100,000 in cash in the pockets of his bespoke suits. Rothstein had in effect financed the biggest sporting scandal in American history with what he had on him. Arnold Rothstein - A. R. as he was known to associates and newspapermen - remains one of those larger-than-life personalities from the 1920s, someone whose story seems to fit far more comfortably into fiction than biography. F. Scott Fitzgerald modeled Meyer Wolfsheim in The Great Gatsby on Rothstein, though Wolfsheim is a far more thuggish and cartoonish figure than the pol. hed, sophisticated, well-connected real-life Rothstein. Damon Runyon, the Hearst writer who mined Broadway for stories and characters the way Rothstein mined it for his pocket money, saw another side of Rothstein when he made him the inspiration for Nathan Detroit, the master of the floating c

The design of the Golden Gate Bridge is far superior to that of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, but an entirely different kind of disaster was averted in 1987 when the Golden Gate celebrated the golden anniversary. To commemorate the occasion, San Francisco allowed 300,000 people to walk across it, with 500,000 more hoping to do the same. The turnout was ten times what had been expected, and people were packed shoulder to shoulder for the entire I.7-mile length of the bridge. As a result, the bridge deck sagged a full seven feet until the people were removed and the overflow crowd was, thankfully, turned away. The problem wasn't poor maintenance; the bridge had been well maintained, which certainly helped to avert disaster. And it wasn't a problem of design. As a suspension bridge, the structure was engineered to bend and move, and while this was the biggest load the bridge had seen, "it did not exceed the design load capacity of the bridge," as engineer Mark Ketchum pointed out. In this case, the problem was the math. According to Stephen Tung of the San Jose Mercury News, while the weight of the individuals on the bridge was unknown, "if the average person weighs 150 pounds and occupies 2.5 square foot in a crowd . . . that's more than double the weight of cars in bumper-to-bumper traffic." Had the additional people been allowed access. there would have been a catastrophic tragedy. Temple Grandin "Visual Thinking: The Hidden Gifts of People Who Think in Pictures, Patterns, and Abstractions" (2022)

The escape led to embarrassing headlines in the news, and more grumbling inside the Lincoln administration about the continued threat of counterfeit dollars weakening the U.S. financial system. President Lincoln soon called for a commission to address the problem. Treasury Secretary Hugh McCulloch had an idea for a permanent fix: creating a "regular permanent force whose job it [would] be to put these counterfeiters out of business." He suggested forming a special unit within the Treasury Department to track down, arrest, and prosecute them. But Lincoln would not live to put McCulloch's idea into action. On the night of April 14, 1865, Lincoln went with his wife, Mary, to see the play "Our American Cousin" at Ford's Theatre in downtown Washington. The president had received numerous death threats, and his aides had succeeded, after years of prodding, to get him to accept that he needed a bodyguard. A team of four police officers borrowed from the local department took turns accompanying him on his travels out in public. But his police officer the night of the play was the weakest of the group, well known for drinking and falling asleep on the job. He left the passageway of the president's box so he could watch the play, then strolled across the street to the Star Saloon to have a drink. John Wilkes Booth, an actor and Confederate sympathizer who had heard of the president's upcoming visit to the theater, stepped behind Lincoln in his box to the left of the stage and shot him in the head. The president died after sunrise the next morning. Carol Leonnig "Zero Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Secret Service" (2021)

Ask Well I recently learned that I'm lactose intolerant. Do I really need to avoid all dairy? Some 30 million to 50 million people in the United States have lactose intolerance. This means their bodies can't adequately break down lactose, the sugar present in milk. The result can be gas, bloating, nausea, diarrhea and abdominal pain, symptoms that typically occur within about 30 to 60 minutes of eating a lactose-rich food, said Beth Ferrell Jenks, a dietitian and assistant professor of nutrition at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The good news: While individual tolerances to dairy foods can vary, certain lower-lactose dairy products can help keep lactose intolerance symptoms at bay. Eating With Lactose Intolerance Trouble with lactose intolerance tends to begin in adulthood, when our bodies gradually makes less lactase, an enzyme that breaks down lactose. Some people might not notice this change, said Dr. Suneeta Krishnareddy, a gastroenterologist at Columbia University Irving Medical Center in New York City. But others may have symptoms that include nausea and vomiting, said Dr. Nitin K. Ahuja, a gastroenterologist at Penn Medicine in Philadelphia. Understanding your triggers involves some trial and error. Here are the dairy products most, and least, likely to exacerbate your symptoms. The Worst Offenders DAIRY MILK Skim, 1 percent, 2 percent and whole milk all contain between 12 and 12.5 grams of lactose per cup. That's around the maximum amount of lactose people with an intolerance can consume per day without having symptoms, said Ella Haddad, a dietitian and professor emeritus of nutrition at Loma Linda University in California. UNAGED (OR FRESH) CHEESE Cheese generally contains less lactose than milk, but some varieties have more than others. Cheeses that haven't been aged typically contain more lactose than aged cheeses, Ms. Jenks said. This is because during the aging process, bacteria break lactose down, converting it into lactic acid. Unaged cheeses tend to be soft and moist. A half-cup serving of cottage cheese with 2 percent milk fat contains about four grams of lactose. Divo table-spoons of fat-free cream cheese has nearly two grams. ICE CREAM Many ice creams, which are mainly made from milk and cream, are rich in lactose. But some contain more lactose than others. If an ice cream contains more milk than cream (you can tell by checking if milk is listed before cream on the ingredients list), it is probably rich in lactose, Dr. Haddad said. This is because milk contains more lactose than cream. OK in Moderation m HARD CHEESE Varieties like Parmesan, Cheddar and Swiss have been aged and therefore contain little lactose and are often easier to digest than un-aged varieties, Dr. Krishnareddy said. A one-and-a-half-ounce serving of Parmesan or Cheddar, for instance, contains less than one-tenth of a gram of lactose. OTHER FERMENTED PRODUCTS Fermented dairy foods like yogurt, kefir and sour cream contain bacteria that help break down lactose, Dr. Krishnareddy said. This lessens the load on your small intestine. BUTTER This kitchen staple is made from milk, cream or both by separating the fat from the rest of the liquid, leaving most of the lactose behind, Dr. Haddad said. One pat of butter or a table-spoon of cream contains about half a gram of lactose or less. What Else Can Help? Many supermarkets carry lactose-free dairy products made from milk but with the lactase enzyme mixed in. Dairy-free products like milk made from almonds, soy or oats; cheese made from nuts; and ice cream made from soy or coconuts are also lactose-free. Over-the-counter lactase enzyme supplements can help reduce your symptoms when taken with a meal. Caroline Hopkins Legaspi

Sergei Rachmaninoff Is Drowned Out By Harpo Marx The Garden of Allah, Los Angeles Summer 1931 Forty-three years later, Rachmaninoff's youthful Prelude in C-Sharp Minor remains by far his most popular piece. 'One day the Prelude simply came and I put it down,' he recalls. 'It came with such force that I could not shake it off even though I tried to do so. It had to be there - so it was.' And so it remains, his albatross. Now devoting himself exclusively to his career as a concert pianist, it exasperates him that it is the only piece of his that audiences ever want to hear him play. They seem to think he has never composed anything else. Consequently, he has grown to detest it, and prefers all his other preludes. 'I think them far better music than my first, but the public has shown no disposition to share my belief,' he complains. The piece pursues him everywhere, an obligation he can never shake off. When he played it in London a few months ago, one critic detected a certain grudging quality about it, complaining that he 'flung it at the audience like a bone to a dog.' If it is a bone, it doubles as a boomerang. 'The big annoyance of my concert life is my C-Sharp Minor Prelude. I'm not sorry I wrote it. It has helped me. But people ALWAYS make me play it. By now I play it without feeling -like a machine!' Between concerts in Texas and Chicago, the elderly Rachmaninoff is taking a break in a bungalow at The Garden of Allah. Sometimes known as 'the Uterus of Flickerland', the Garden of Allah consists of twenty-five bungalows set around a main hotel, in lush grounds full of orange, grapefruit, banana and palm trees. Built in 1927 by Alla Nazimova, a star of the silent movies, its vast swimming pool is shaped like the Black Sea, to remind Nazimova of her childhood in Yalta. (It is at the Garden of Allah that a friend of Robert Benchley tells him that drink is a slow poison, prompting Benchley to reply, 'That's all right. I'm in no hurry.' Humorists are attracted by the irreverent atmosphere of the Garden of Allah, among them Arthur Sheekrnan, one of the Marx Brothers' scriptwriters, who plays Cecil B. DeMille's The Crusades over and over again in his bungalow simply so that he can hear Loretta Young say to her husband, Richard the Lionheart, 'Ya gotta save Christianity, Richard, ya gotta!') It is, in a way, the Los Angeles precursor of New York's Chelsea Hotel, a refuge for transients from the East Coast like Scott Fitzgerald and Dorothy Parker. Alexander Woollcott describes it as 'the kind of village you might look for down the rabbit-hole'. Over the years, it has certainly been populated by some outlandish figures. The switchboard was once taken over by an operator who believed he could read character from voices, and refused to put through calls from anyone whose voice he disliked. Many residents drink to excess, regularly losing their footing and tumbling headlong into the pool. 'I used to wait for them to come home and fall in,' says the playwright Arthur Kober. 'It was like waiting for a shoe to drop. I'd hear the splashes and then I'd go to sleep.' Tallulah Bankhead used to like strolling naked around the pool by moonlight. Less seductively, while filming The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Charles Laughton loved to swim in it with his hump still on. Perhaps Sergei Rachmaninoff should have guessed from its reputation that the Garden of Allah would not offer the necessary respite from his busy concert schedule. But, then again, how was he to know who his next-door neighbor would turn out to be? For three years, the Marx Brothers have been on the road, performing their stage show Animal Crackers across America. But in 1931 they are offered a film contract by Paramount, and move to Los Angeles. Harpo, the brother who never speaks, chooses to rent a bungalow at the Garden of Allah. He thinks that his bungalow - a little distance from the main hubbub - will let him exercise both sides of his character, extrovert comedian and introvert harpist. He takes to the Garden of Allah like a duck to water. It is, he says, 'the best place t

FAMILY I'd come back to do a theater workshop on Block Island. My father lived near the train station in Kingston, Rhode Island, and I asked him to pick me up and drive me to the Block Island ferry. I thought we could have a good visit in the car. "What do you mean, Dad?" At the train station Dad gave me that old obligatory bundle-of-wire hug and we rode in silence. Close to the ferry, he said, "You know Rock-Chan-Spud"-whenever he forgot which son he was with, he called all three names out - "I was thinking, if we miss the ferry, we could have a beer together." He said, "We could go to my summer cottage, if we miss the ferry." I said, "Well, let's miss it." "What do you mean?" He said. "I can get another one in an hour!" I answered. Every summer my stepmother and father would rent a cottage by the sea and never use it. They'd just leave it locked up; it was like an idea. And he wanted to go to it. So I said, "Let's go," and he did a U-turn in the car - I'd never seen him do that - and off we went. He opened the cottage for the first time that summer and it was all mildewed in there, and he got out the cocktail munchies. They were all fog-bound: wilted Cheez Doodles, soggy pretzels, those lite peanuts that are like Styrofoam and two teeny cans of Budweiser - not my favorite beer, not my favorite-size can. But it was a drink with Dad! We went to the picnic table out back near the water's edge and oh, God, this heavy Rhode Island fog was coming in; thick pea-soup fog. It was like the opening of a Eugene O'Neill play. We sat there in silence until I broke it and said, "Well, Dad, I guess it's good we have this chance to talk. I don't think we've talked since I was fourteen and you told me the facts of life on a golf course. But I was wondering, now that you're about to be eighty, do you have any regrets? Because I sometimes feel that my life is ruled by regret. I have so many. Do you have any, Dad?" "Nope. Just that I never climbed Mount Katahdin." (Either FAMILY or another cast member makes the sound of a foghorn.) (Gestures to sound and explains.) Sound of foghorn. "You know, Gram Gray once told me that you and Mom were married in the white church in Barrington on Halloween. "What a kinky, imaginative day to get married on. Why'd you do that, Dad?" "Seemed as good a day as any." (FAMILY or other cast repeats foghorn sound.) "You know, you had three children, you had three boys. I never had any children, I don't know why - I don't know if it's by mistake or that I'm afraid to have them, or if I can't have them. What did you get out of having them, why would anyone have children?" "That was the thing to do in those days." (FAMILY or other cast member repeats foghorn sound.) "Well, I won't bother you anymore. But I did want to ask you one more question. You had three boys, I was the middle son. Dad, why was I the only one that wasn't circumcised?" Long pause. "You weren't'?" Then I said, "Well, I guess we better get going." And Dad said, "Oh all right, pack it up. Yep, yep. Lock up, lock up." We locked up the house. We got outside and he realized he hadn't called my stepmother, Sis, to find out what kind of fish to bring home from the Galilee market, and he said, "Oh shit! I forgot to call Sis." Then he unlocked the door and went back in to call, and I thought, My father never said "shit" in front of me in his life. He came back out and I realized I'd left my Danish school bag in there. The cottage was locked up again and I said, "Oh shit, Dad, I left my Danish school bag in there." And then I realized we had just bonded. Those two "shits" made all the difference. I told this story at my father's memorial service. I did. My stepmother said afterward, "You're crazy. You're on drugs. Your father never said that word in his life. Don't you ever come back to Rhode Island as long as you live!" Spalding Gray "Spalding Gray Stories Left To Tell" (2008)

Twice more in the 1920s, the Black Sox found themselves back in the headlines. In 1922 Buck Weaver, Hap Felsch, Swede Risberg, and Joe Jackson all filed separate suits against the White Sox, claiming their contracts had been wrongfully terminated and that they were owed back pay. The Weaver suit was filed in Chicago; the Felsch, Risberg, and Jackson suits, in Wisconsin, where the White Sox business was incorporated. Only the Jackson case ever came to trial, heard in Milwaukee over two weeks in January and February of 1924. Most of the principals in the Black Sox case either testified or had depositions read into the record, and if the case attracted somewhat less newspaper interest than the criminal trial two and a half years earlier, it was still a front-page story for the length of its run. Jackson was the trial's most dramatic witness. On direct examination he told the story of having been duped by Harry Grabiner, before the 1920 season, into signing a contract he had been told had excluded the hated ten-day clause, the standard major league provision that allowed a club to terminate a contract for any reason with ten days' notice. Jackson was a persuasive witness, well spoken and sympathetic as he told his story. On cross-examination, however, the court saw a different witness. For some reason, Jackson denied all that he had said to the Cook County grand jury in September 1920. When White Sox attorney George Hudnall read from the transcript and repeatedly asked: "Were you asked this question and did you give this answer?" Jackson repeatedly answered: "No, Sir, I didn't" or "I didn't make that answer" According to Black Sox-trial historian William Lamb, Jackson denied or repudiated 119 points from his sworn grand jury testimony. It was peculiar, if not bizarre testimony, and it did not sit well with Judge John Gregory, who held his tongue for the moment. However, when the White Sox had completed their case - which included testimony from the Cook County grand jury foreman and stenographer, saying that Jackson had indeed said all that he had just denied - and Gregory had charged and excused the jury, he called Jackson before the bench. "You stand here self-convicted of the crime of perjury," he told him, and ordered bailiffs to arrest him and hold him on $5,000 bail. "When the jury has returned its verdict, I shall have something more to say on this case," Gregory said. While waiting for the verdict the following morning, he told the court: "Either [Jackson's] testimony here or his testimony before the Chicago grand jury was false. I think the false testimony was here." Jackson was in custody only a few hours before making bail, and was in the courtroom the following morning when the jury returned its verdict. They found for Jackson on all counts, awarding him $16,711.04. Normally, this is the point at which the judge thanks the jury for its service and its verdict. Judge Gregory instead scolded them. "How you could answer some of those questions in the manner you have, the court cannot understand. Jackson stands before this court a convicted perjurer and has been committed to jail. It did not need a court or a jury to determine that. Jackson determined that for himself." Gregory then set aside the jury's verdict on the grounds of fraud and perjury, though Jackson would never stand trial on those perjury charges. The outcome of the Jackson trial took the starch out of the other three suits. All were plagued by delays and postponements and never came to trial. The Felsch and Risberg suits were eventually settled for pennies on the dollar. The same may have happened with the Weaver case; court records show only that it was terminated in December 1925. Charles Fountain "The Betrayal: How the 1919 Black Sox Scandal Changed Baseball" (2016)

The 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion killed eleven and injured many others, and the subsequent oil spill created one of the largest environmental disasters in our history. It was caused by a combination of operator error and poor maintenance, exacerbated by a disconnect between policies and practices. Forty-six percent of the workers on Deepwater Horizon feared reprisal if they reported safety problems in a culture that prioritized cost cutting and efficiency. By all reports, this tragedy might have been prevented had management adopted better protocols. According to investigative reporting by David Barstow, David Rohde, and Stephanie Saul in The New York Times, Horizon's systems deployed but didn't function, were activated too late, or were not activated at all. The crew was trained to field problems but was unprepared for a blowout, fires, and power loss. The Times article reported that while the handbook was hailed as a "safety expert's dream," it didn't answer the basic question of when to act. When action was required, the crew failed to deploy the emergency shutdown system. Further, said the article, "one emergency system alone was controlled by 30 buttons." The employee responsible for shutting it down claimed she had not been taught how to use the system. "I don't know any of the procedures," she said. The blowout preventer (BOP) is exactly what it sounds like: a 400-ton valve that works like the plug in your toilet tank, only it's meant as a final failsafe in the event of various forces causing the well to blow. Blowout preventers are meant to be the "ultimate fail-safe," but the investigation by the New York Times reporters concludes that the BOP "may have been crippled by poor maintenance. Investigators have found a host of problems - dead batteries, bad solenoid valves, leaking hydraulic lines - that were overlooked or ignored." On top of that, a routine maintenance inspection didn't happen. And even as the crew evacuated, they were met with another compromised set of protocols that were meant to have ensured their safety. Bewilderingly, though they practiced evacuation drills, "they had never rehearsed inflating and lowering the raft They had trouble freeing it from the deck, more trouble keeping it level and more trouble still getting it loaded." Even the lifeboats were a near-epic fail. Temple Grandin "Visual Thinking: The Hidden Gifts of People Who Think in Pictures, Patterns, and Abstractions" (2022)

On January 6, the forces pulling the country apart erupted in violence on the Capitol grounds. That day, the president egged on his angry supporters gathered for his speech on the National Mall, urging them to march on Congress and block lawmakers from certifying a "stolen" election. "If you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore," Trump said, telling his chanting followers they were all going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol to give Republican lawmakers a message. "We're going to try and give them the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country." The mob did as he asked. Thousands marched to the Capitol and quickly broke through the police barricades on its west lawn. After another hour of battling the police in their path, hundreds broke through the Capitol's windows and doors, in a chilling scene that resembled newsreels from a third world country. Inside the Senate chamber, where lawmakers had gathered to certify the election, a small Secret Service detail whisked Vice President Pence off the floor to a hideaway office. Only seconds later, an off-shoot of the mob, chanting that Pence was a traitor, rushed up to a second-floor landing where Pence and his agents had just passed. Despite the heroism of their brothers in arms that day, some Secret Service personnel again took to social media in the days after January 6, empathizing with and defending the mission of the armed rioters who breached the Capitol - the same ones who had endangered the Pence agents and pummeled Capitol Police officers with metal pipes and bats. One Secret Service officer called the armed protesters "patriots" seeking to undo an illegitimate election, and falsely claimed to her friends that disguised Antifa members had started the violence. One presidential detail agent reposted a popular anti-Biden screed that criticized Democrats for their relentless attacks on Trump. It read: "I tolerated #44 (Obama) for 8 years and kept quiet. Here is my issue with the whole, 'let us all be a United States again' that we heard from Joe Biden. We remember the 4 years of attacks and impeachments. We remember the resistance and 'not our president'. We remember the president's spokesperson being kicked out a [sic] restaurant. . . . We remember that we were called every name in the book for supporting President Trump." Others shared the commentary of pro-Trump conspiracy leaders criticizing Democrats. One agent reposted the image of an upside-down American flag, a military signal for extreme distress, with the words of right-wing activist Raheem Kassam: "In less than 12 months they closed our businesses, forced us to wear muzzles, kept us from our families, killed off our sports, burned down our cities, forcibly seized power, and shut down our speech. Then they accused *us* of the coup." Given all the ways the Secret Service had enabled Trump in the last year - from enabling his authoritarian march across Lafayette Square to the murmured support in the ranks for overturning Biden's election - it was understandable that the president-elect and his aides had doubts. Was the agency entrusted with Biden's life fully committed to the assignment? So serious was this concern about Trump's corrosive hold on the Secret Service that Biden transition advisers urged that the agency swap out all members of the Trump presidential detail before Biden's inauguration. Headquarters agreed to a compromise. They would bring back some of the senior agents whom Biden knew well from his vice presidential detail and make them supervisors on his new presidential team. Biden advisers, meanwhile, laid plans to replace Murray in the first half of 2021. The incoming team was disturbed by a director who would allow the Service to be used in an authoritarian photo op and in campaign events that jeopardized the public and their own workers' health, and let a top official cross over to a political role in the White House. When Trump lost reelection, Murray had even returned Ornato to the Secret Service fold, as he was not yet eligi

Where Mystery begins justice ends (Edmund Burke) I'm not asking you to go back through the centuries. You can stay right here. It'll be all right. I want you to go with me to a factory in the north of England, one of the largest manufacturers of those orange juice cartons that you have in cinemas. They are very useful things because you can blow down the straw during love scenes. So of course it is classed as an essential industry. And this was one of the very biggest of those firms making these orange juice cartons, Mrs. J H Tree and Company, very large establishment. And having this close association with the entertainment business,they naturally had a very thriving amateur dramatic society. And one week they were due to put on their annual production, which was Maid of the Mountains There was a young girl who worked in the pulping department, where they separated the pips. You notice that you never get any pips in those orange juices. The pips are sold separately to Edmundo Ross for use in his miraculous shows. And this was her job. And she was very much in love with Gordon, who was the chief of the accounts department, a very handsome young man with nice smile, very nice even teeth. Actually, his odd teeth were nice as well. But he was altogether very attractive and they were very much in love with one another. Gordon loved Kate. Kate loved Gordon. And they were due to star together in this Maid of the Mountains and the arrangement was, after the first night they would go straight away and get married and the very nearest license bureau. And they would live happily ever after. But unfortunately a few days before the production, who should come along but the boss's daughter. Now the boss's daughter, whose name was Edith, Edith Tree; she was a rather large girl. She was shaped something like a hundred watt bulb. And she demanded that, being the boss's daughter, she should star, in fact take the main part in Maid of the Mountains, which actually they thought meant one of the mountains. But, no, it was the maid, the part of the maid that she wanted. Being the boss's daughter, what could they do. And the very old char hand there said, "Well, you've got to make up your mind, lad. You can't have your cake and eat it too." So naturally he had to give in and let the boss's daughter, Edith, play the part. Well, poor Kate was absolutely broken-hearted about this. This was to be her big evening. And the same char hand saw her sobbing in the corner and said, "Now don't you worry. Because I've fixed everything. When you get into your proper clothes, 'cause I'll guarantee you, when that Edith Tree comes on, five minutes late, she'll be off again. So you get ready." She said, "Well, what have you done?" He said, "Well, the stage is right under the huge vat where they store the orange juice. And I 'ave pierced a small 'ole in ceiling above where she stands. I will guarantee you, the minute she utters her first word, that orange juice will come down all over here." She said, "Are you sure?" He said, "I give you my word. Where Miss Tree begins, juice descends." Denis Norden 580604b

Ask Well I always get sneezy and congested around the holidays. Is my Christmas tree to blame? The holiday season can be a time filled with joy, mirth and - sometimes - itchy eyes, irritated skin, congestion and wheezing. This cluster of symptoms, sometimes referred to as "Christmas tree syndrome," typically doesn't stem from an allergy to the Christmas tree itself. But sometimes certain hitchhikers on the tree, like mold or dust, can cause a reaction, experts say. And if you're sensitive to the tree's fragrance or sap, that can also irritate your skin or airways. Thankfully, there are ways to minimize the risk that your Christmas tree will turn you into a sneezing, sniffling Scrooge. Typically, when people are allergic to trees, they are allergic to their pollen. But evergreen pollens are less likely to induce an allergic reaction than other tree pollens, and trees don't usually produce pollen around this time of year, so it's unlikely that a person would be truly allergic to a Christmas tree, said Dr. Joshua Davidson, an allergist and immunologist in Redondo Beach, Calif. That said, you could still experience allergic or allergy-like reactions when spending time with your favorite pines, spruces and firs. Here are some potential causes. MOLD Certain types of mold can grow on a Christmas tree. And if you're allergic to that mold, bringing a tree into your home can cause allergy symptoms, Dr. Davidson said. In one 2023 study, researchers analyzed the results of allergy tests administered to more than 1.6 million people in the United States between 2014 and 2019. They found that nearly 17 percent of them showed an allergy to Alternaria alternata, a common type of mold that can grow on Christmas trees. The mold is so small that you can't see it with the naked eye, said Dr. Sanjiv Sur, an allergist and immunologist at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. But if your tree was growing in rainy or humid conditions, he said, mold is more likely to be present. Mold may also grow more easily if the tree is stored or transported in an unventilated, damp space, Dr. Sur said. FRAGRANCE Although many people love how Christmas trees smell, their scent - which comes from chemicals called terpenes - can also cause problems. "It's not really an allergy, but it's just irritating to the airway," Dr. Davidson said, and it can cause sneezing, congestion, itchy eyes and sometimes wheezing and chest tightness. SAP Touching your Christmas tree - and especially its sap or resin, a thick substance that trees release after injury - could irritate your skin, too, Dr. Sur said. DUST AND OTHER DEBRIS If your tree is grown in a dusty area, or transported through one (like a dirt road or construction site), it may bring dust into your house, Dr. Sur said. If you have an artificial Christmas tree, you may not be in the clear, either. People usually aren't allergic to fake Christmas trees, but because the trees are often stored for much of the year in dirty lofts or storage spaces, they can easily accumulate dust mites and mold, said Dr. Linda Cox, an allergist in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. "This has happened to many of my patients," she said. After coming in with bad asthma attacks, they'll often say that they were triggered after being in their attics. If you're experiencing respiratory symptoms around your tree, air purifiers containing HEPA filters can help by removing mold and other irritants from the air, Dr. Cox said. You can also try to kill any mold that might be lurking on your tree, Dr. Sur said. Mold needs humid conditions - at least 55 percent relative humidity - to grow. If you're having symptoms and your air feels muggy, try running a dehumidifier. You can also purchase a hygrometer, which measures relative humidity, for less than $15, he said. Dr. Davidson said you could also take decongestants to alleviate your symptoms. If you develop skin irritation after touching your tree, try creating "a barrier" between your skin and the tree by wearing long sleeves and gloves the next time you need to touch it, Dr. Sur said. When putting up a pot

CAREER I'd entered what Renee's mother calls the Bermuda Triangle of Health. She says that between fifty and fifty-three years old is the Bermuda Triangle of Health. Things start going wrong with you then. I was coming into it - with a macula pucker in my left eye. I was called in by my eye doctor for an examination, because he wanted to see if my condition was deteriorating. I go back to that waiting room. They dilate my pupils; I'm sitting there in the waiting room, waiting in the fuzz. I see this person come out of my doctor's office. In my dilated condition I see this little guy backing out in a pinstripe suit, making real jerky movements, kind of like in a Buster Keaton movie. He's waving like a wind-up toy. Like he's this ... automatic something, I don't know what. He turns and starts walking toward me. I'm amazed and shocked to see that he's got on one of those rubber Nixon masks that we used to buy in joke shops when Nixon was president. What the hell is going on in my doctor's office? He's walking right toward me, and as he gets closer I realize that it is Richard Nixon. I think, No, wait a minute, maybe his pupils are dilated too, and he thinks I'm Ralph Lauren. Richard Nixon is walking directly toward me - with intent. As though he were going to come up to me and say, "Hi, I saw Swimming to Cambodia, and I loved it!" He walks right up to me, and I say, "Oh hi." He says nothing, and then he walks out. He just leaves. I go into my doctor's office and I say, "Was that Richard Nixon who just left here?" "Oh yes, nothin' the matter with him." "Well, there is no justice in the world, is there." Spalding Gray "Spalding Gray Stories Left To Tell" (2008)

Joe Jackson was a simple man, but hardly the ignorant rube portrayed in the sports-page caricatures of his day. He never played barefoot because he couldn't afford shoes, or because he was unused to shoes, having grown up without them as many newspaper fantasies had it through the years. He did once playa couple of innings of one game without shoes, because a new pair had left his feet blistered. This happened while playing in Greenville, South Carolina, either in city's Textile League or for the Greenville Spinners during his first year of organized ball in 1908. He took at least one at-bat in his stocking feet, either tripled or homered, depending upon the account being rendered, and when he arrived or passed, third base, a fan was alleged to have shouted: "You shoeless son of gun, you!" Carter "Scoop" Latimer of the Greenville News, himself then just teenage reporter, overheard (or invented) the shout, and Joe Jackson was forever after "Shoeless Joe." It was a nickname befitting humble rural roots and an uncomplicated personality. By that point in his young career, Jackson was already fashioning a baseball reputation deserving of a memorable nickname. Baseball had been his deliverance from an otherwise Dickensian boyhood. He was born in Brandon, a mill town just outside Greenville, in July 1889.' The oldest of eight children, he had not a day's schooling his entire life. By six, when he might have been in the first grade, he was sweeping floors in a mill in Brandon. By thirteen he was working twelve-hour days in the mill alongside his father. What daylight hours were not spent on the cotton-mill floor were spent on the ball field. He was a big kid; by sixteen he was six foot two and gangly, not yet anywhere near his major league weight of 185 pounds. Still, he already had those Pop eye forearms and hands the size of skillets, and, gangly teenager or not, he could hit a baseball half again as far as anybody else in town and throw it like it had been shot from a cannon. He was playing for the Brandon Mills baseball team by the time he was thirteen. There were thirteen mills ringing Greenville, and Saturday afternoon games in the Textile League would attract crowds of several hundred to a couple thousand or more, and the players became objects of great affection and celebrity in their local mill communities. And nobody was more celebrated than the marvelously gifted teenager from Brandon. "Joe's Saturday specials" -line drive home runs that were still rising when they sailed over the outfielders' heads-became the talk of Brandon, and every time he hit one, his younger brothers would scramble up into the stands to pass the hat so that the Brandon fans might show their gratitude. There were times the fans showed their gratitude to the tune of $lO or so, as much as a full week's wages at the mill. Such a phenomenon was Jackson that he was recruited away from Brandon Mills by the rival Victor Mills team, with the promise of a softer job in the mill and time off to practice. Greenville got its own team in organized baseball in 1908, and Jackson was one of the first players signed, to a contract paying him a princely $75 a month. Pros or semipros, it was all the same to Jackson; he had a great year, batting over .350 to lead the Carolina Association in hitting. On an off day in July he married his Greenville sweetheart, Katie Wynn-he was nineteen, she fifteen. And in August, he got the news that the Philadelphia Athletics had bought his contract. He was going to the big leagues, as soon as the Carolina Association season was over. By that point in his young career, Jackson was already fashioning a baseball reputation deserving of a memorable nickname. Baseball had been his deliverance from an otherwise Dickensian boyhood. He was born in Brandon, a mill town just outside Greenville, in July 1889. The oldest of eight children, he had not a day's schooling his entire life. By six, when he might have been in the first grade, he was sweeping floors in a mill in Brandon. By thirteen he was working twelve-hour days in the mill alongs

It is heartbreaking to have a child who is toilet trained lose his toilet training. If that occurs, the first step is to rule out a urinary tract infection that can be easily diagnosed with a urine sample. Other possible causes could be GI problems such as diarrhea or parasites. Dr. Bauman has found that some pre-teen children lose bladder control due to a spastic bladder and that sometimes the drug Ditropan is helpful. In conclusion, it is vital to remember that, with most children with autism, and especially with those who are nonverbal or have limited verbal skills, behavior is communication. Sudden or unexplained acting out behaviors that continue for days or weeks are often the result of hidden physical issues affecting the child. Before you ask for more and more powerful psychiatric drugs, you must absolutely, positively rule out a treatable medical problem. Temple Grandin "The Way I See It: A Personal Look at Autism & Asperger's" (2011)

At around 6 P.M. on a warm Friday evening in September, most of Washington had begun to shut down their computers, pack up their things at work, and officially commence their weekend. President Obama still had a few senior staff meetings before he, too, would head out for a weekend getaway at Camp David. He was scheduled to depart the White House with his two teenaged daughters in an hour, flying to meet his wife at the presidential retreat in Maryland's Catoctin Mountains. Six blocks south, though, a former Army scout had just arrived in the city. Suffering from delusions and panicky dreams, Omar Jose Gonzalez could feel the adrenaline in his veins. He was itching to set off on his important mission. Gonzalez parked his 1996 Ford Bronco off Fifteenth Street near the Holocaust Museum, cracked his windows a little, and hopped out. The disabled Iraq War veteran had lost his wife and his home near Fort Hood, Texas, and had been living in his car, short-term motels, and campgrounds for the last several months. Part of his foot was missing after the Humvee he was riding in rolled over a roadside bomb in Baghdad. His family felt he had been struggling to keep hold of reality after he returned from three tours and eventually retired with a disability in 2012. A cavalry scout, he described watching friends getting blown up. At his home near Fort Hood, he kept guns leaning behind the doors. He feared children he didn't know and warned his wife they could be deadly. As he set off for the White House on foot, he left hints of a life that was unraveling: two dogs in the Bronco's backseat, jars filled with his urine on the floorboards, and eight hundred rounds of ammunition, two hatchets, and a machete in the trunk. At 6:25 P.M., Gonzalez reached the southeastern corner of the White House's fenced grounds and began casing the perimeter for a way in. The forty-two-year-old soldier marched up the western border on Seventeenth Street, then along the north fence on the Pennsylvania Avenue pedestrian plaza, then down Fifteenth Street on the east. Four Secret Service officers who patrolled the compound for trouble - two on bikes and two on foot - noticed Gonzalez at different points in his walk. A few even recognized the caramel-complexioned man with a shaved head from a visit the previous month. That day, he had been walking along the south fence line with a hatchet tucked into his pants belt. He said he used it for camping and stowed it in his car. Today, in his dark T-shirt and baggy cargo pants, he didn't appear to be carrying anything or behaving oddly. They let him pass. Gonzalez doubled back to the north fence line, where most tourists were content to snap photos. But this Army vet knew he had to get inside. He had a life-or-death matter he had to discuss with the president. As dusk fell, two starkly different scenes played out on opposite sides of the White House grounds. On the South Lawn, order and serenity ruled. An orchestrated routine that the Secret Service had rehearsed over and over repeated itself. On the North Lawn, a modest problem set off a series of cascading disasters. Every last one of the Secret Service's defenses disintegrated. And officers sworn to tell the truth would lie about the mistakes they made. Around 7:05 P.M., President Obama stepped out of the Oval Office into the soft evening air. A briefcase of weekend reading in his hand, he strolled down the West Colonnade with his deputy chief of staff, Anita Breckinridge, then said goodbye to go meet his daughters. Four suited Secret Service agents shielded Barack Obama's flank and back as he walked from the South Portico's ground-floor exit to his waiting helicopter in the grass. Malia and Sasha, along with a school friend, followed close behind their dad, canvas backpacks of schoolwork strapped to their shoulders. Most of the Secret Service's traveling shift that would accompany Obama the next three days had already left for the Anacostia Naval Station. They were catching their own helicopter ride north and would receive the president when he arrived at the retr

You can't have your cake and eat it (17th century proverb) I want you, if you will, to come back through the centuries away from this era that we are at the moment, to overstate the case, living, back a thousand or so years to the shores of the Bosphorus. There, there were three Turkish brothers. There was one called Ab, and his rather dull brother called Abdul, an even further and duller brother called Abdullah. These three brothers had a boat; a little Levantine called caique, as Charles would have it. And they used to fish on the Bosphorus without success; they used to fish for shad. And shad is a nocturnal fish; and you've probably had the soup made from it, nocturnal soup. Being nocturnal, meant that Ab, Abdul, and, of course, Abdullah, had to fish at night and it's desperately cold on the Bosphorus. And one of the brothers pointed out that here on the Bosphorus they're just not getting prosperous because it's so cold our fingers can't pull in the nets and the whole thing is a dead loss to us. So, what to do? And they were in desperation. And then a fortunate thing happened. Because they an aunt who lived in Constantinople, Aunt Maude. And Aunt Maude died and left them a small wood-burning stove. The brothers, Ab, Abdul, and of course Abdullah took this wooden stove and said, "It's just the thing for our caique." And they put it there. Abdul said, "Leave it to me." And he positioned it carefully in the middle of the boat. And they rowed out to the middle of the Bosphorus and started fishing. After a while, Abdul said, "Abdullah, haven't you forgotten something?" And he said, "No, I don't think so." Abdullah aid, "How about fuel for the stove?" And he said, "Yes. You're right, I have forgotten. Where can we get some wood?" And they looked all over and I think it was Abdul or Ab, who said "There's a bit of square wood at the back of the boat. That's made of wood." So they tore off the transom of the boat and they stuffed it in the wood-burning stove and they got nice and warm. And that didn't last very long. And they saw that there was wood all around the sides. So they stripped bits off and shoved it into the stove and got nice and warm. And the night got colder, so they tore up the seats, till finally the three of them and the stove were floating on the keel. I think it was Abdullah who finally picked the keel up and shoved it in the stove, which of course was the last of the boat and the three of them were drowned. And hence the old Turkish proverb, You can't have your caique and heat it. Frank Muir 580604a