God has given wine to gladden the hearts of people-----Psalm 104
Wednesday Round Up of the Good News
Welcome one and all to perhaps the best consolation corner of the Internet, the DailyKos Good News Round Up. Every day a team of dedicated, determinedly cheerful, relentlessly upbeat folks assemble stories from the InterTubes that inspire, relieve, inform, console, encourage, and uplift hearts and spirits and souls and moods among all who arrive. Today the Powers that Be allow me, WineRev, the noted (for all the wrong reasons) Lunatic with a Laptop, the chance to host the Round Up, so here I am, and here you are……a good start both ways.
Pull up a chair, get down to socks or bare toes, put your feet up in the hammock, on the coffee table or the other end of the couch, reach down for the lever or push back on the chair back to make the recliner footrest pop out and get comfy. Set up the coffee mug, the tea cozy (always a snuggling sort of term), or the hearty mug of mocha/cocoa…..OR bring in the iced glass pitcher and pour off your first (and after the 2nd, who’s counting anyway) mimosa. Set any or all of these liquids near to hand, just past the croissants, the rolls, the breakfast/lunch/mid-morning/mid-afternoon snack or meal. Here’s hoping you enjoy a respite from the crazy and negative. To make things even better for everyone else reading along, be sure to recommend, comment, correct, amplify, hypothesize, and even digress or free-associate in the comments. Post up your own finds, add links and pix because the Good News Round Up always has room for another piece of peace, a chunk of the cheeky, some extra joie d’vivre, or even a rope of hope let down into the well of your sighing. C’mon in (and as is my custom, you will see Historic notes for July 19th of how the Good News broke in in decades past, sometimes with a giggle, sometimes with a “wow”, sometimes with a cheer, and sometimes with a chuckle.)
Breaking/Cracking/Splintering/Dripping/Oozing News
Likely several of these little items of BREAKING stuff here on Tuesday afternoon will have splintered, evaporated or been enlarged and elaborated upon by the time this Diary posts on Wednesday morning, but they are here to get you started…….sort of like those first couple mini-croissants…..
>>>» The Mango Menace himself today let it be known IN MELTDOWN FORM that he has received a Target Letter from (the ever-suave, understated, dapper and laser-focused, 007-esque) Smith…..Jack Smith. Trump said he got notice on Sunday and let the news drop here on Tuesday. Further, it looks like this Target Letter and coming indictments are connected to the J6 plotting for electoral overthrow and Insurrection.
Now the LAST TIME we did this drill, with the stolen classified documents CRIMES, again the Target Letter to Trump was painted in red and white concentric circles on his backside onEar a Sunday, and the actual 37 count indictment dropped on that Thursday.
SO…...here we are, a Target Letter Sunday behind us, a Tuesday Bean Spilling by the Mango Menace, you and me all here on Wednesday…..so should we be decorating? Celebrating? Drinking in anticipation…..which is COMPLETELY different than drinking in celebration?
BTW there IS a story floating out there that Rudi Giuliani flat out Told the Press he has NOT received a Target Letter. Of course, Rudi could be lying…..OR the DOJ will be circling back on a later set of charges…..OR Rudi’s “proffer meeting” of several hours with the DOJ may have landed him some immunity or a plea bargain.
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>>>>>>Speaking of Overthrowing the Government (which, surprisingly, people who work in government take a REALLY DIM VIEW OF) there is THIS STORY from Michigan. The State Attorney General, Nessel…..Dana Nessel, has been conducting an investigation into the Fake Electors Plot from the Michigan end of things, where she has jurisdiction. 16 Michigan GQPers signed on as Fake Electors and now Nessel has charged them all: election law forgery, conspiracy, etc. (The Lansing Office of Suave Criminal Investigation clearly is working from the same “Bust the Bastards Cooly” pamphlet as the DOJ and Smith…..Jack Smith.) ANOTHER LINKED STORY HERE.
Who wants to bet down in Georgia, DA Fani Willis, fresh off of a UNANIMOUS Georgia Supreme Court decision in her favor and against Donald Trump, is taking notes and passing around style points for her Late July/ Early August Indictment Runway Walk of Arrests of perhaps dozens of targets in Georgia’s version of the Fake Elector Plot?
Good News Among and For People
Kindness. Dignity. Respect. Do that with other people and you’ll get along in life. A community can do the same, from birth to old age. And sometimes, these little things….take your breath away or put a tear in your eye. HERE IS A STORY from Australia that stopped my traffic. An ambulance crew was taking a very elderly woman from a hospice to the hospital. She was at the end of her life; she knew it, and so did they. Their route took them near the ocean, and she started talking about how much the beach had meant to her……so the crew did a heart-warming thing…..to make her last day a warm, dignified and satisfying one. (I feel the same way about the beach and ocean. I think I’m going to ask someone do this for me like happened here. If I can hear the surf, and someone could play Vivaldi Guitar Concerto, the ‘Largo’ second movement, then to have those 2 sounds in my last hearing…..I will go content to that Far Country….)
Speaking of the “considered past their prime”, there are a growing number of post-age-65 that are choosing to work. Not so much out of financial need (although there are a distressing number of such cases) but, a la Over-age-80 President Joe Biden, folks like those in THIS LINKED ARTICLE want to stay connected and involved and contributing.
Of course, there have been many cases when people have wanted to make a difference and have not been allowed to. But history is replete (replete, I say) with individuals and moments when things moved so much that afterwards people said “before” and “after” (to show the change.)
1817 Knox County, Ohio Birth of Mary Ann (Ball) Bickerdyke, Union army nurse. You may know the name of Clara Barton as an American nurse during the Civil War (and later founder and first President of the American Red Cross.) If you are a Civil War nut like me you’ll know the name of Dorothea Dix, who single-handedly established a nursing corps for the Union Army, recruited nurses, set and enforced standards.
Post CIvil War by 25 years
With the Western Armies of Grant, Sherman and Thomas, there was Mary Ann (“Mother”) Bickerdyke. Graduate of the (radically co-educational) Oberlin College, she married Robert Bickerdyke (who died in 1859, leaving her a widow) and they had 2 sons. When the Civil War erupted mother and sons were in Galesburg, Illinois. Bickerdyke got a “letter of recommendation” from the local Sanitary Commission to bust through some sexist barriers and set up nursing operations in the Union Armies.
Everyone on a cot called her “Mother” as she was tireless in both care and advocacy. She hired (and paid) runaway slaves and free folk and Native Americans to tend patients after instructing them with the basics. One Memphis hospital administrator waited until she went to mid-day dinner (lunch), then fired all “those people”. Bickerdyke was livid (look into those eyes in her picture and imagine her fuming!). She sent word for all of them to assemble in front of the hospital while she went to call on General Hurlbut, commander of Union Occupied Memphis. She got a written order from him declaring she had sole authority over all persons doing nursing duties, marched back to the hospital with her staff and so “informed” the administrator. (Guess who lost his job soon?)
General Grant always took his hat off for her in public and frequently called her the “Brigadier of the Hospitals.” General Sherman declared her work was worth 10,000 men in his army. And she had…..presence. In February 1864 (so a cold, New England Winter night) she was on a speaking tour in New Haven, CT, giving a public lecture on nursing “out West”. At the end of her remarks, she asked all the women in the hall to stand. She made an impassioned plea of the need for bandages and (since medical gauze had not been invented yet) the best material was silk. She then called on the ladies in the hall to reach inside their clothing and untie a petticoat and kick it to the aisle (where furiously blushing (male) ushers would pick them up) as a donation to the war effort. She got dozens that night. Female attendees walked home extra quick that night, and there were goosebumps, but there was also Union pride, right down to their unmentionables….
The Tuskeegee Airmen with entertainer Lena Horne (3rd fr. L)
1941 Tuskegee, Alabama The first US Army flying school for black cadets opens. Busting through some racial barriers (strafing through them might be a good verb too) the Tuskegee Airmen are born and when they get to fly the P-51 Mustangs the “Red Tail” squadrons take “street cred” to new heights, and soon, both US bomber crews under their protection, and the Luftwaffe know it. (The movie “Red Tails” is worth the rental…..)
Good News from Music & Arts & Music as courage
There are times when the arts and music and story and song and stage are denigrated and run down. The semi-scientific sneer is often phrased as “all those things have no survival value.” One of my heroes, CS Lewis, answered the mechanistic and those “men without chests”---(whose lives consist only of intellect and appetite--- but lack character/morals/sensitivity/taste/humor (all of which reside the chest/heart)----- decades ago: “True, they have no survival value…..but they give value to survival.”
Which means, for one thing, like the movie “Footloose” reminded us, sometimes you just gotta DANCE! Kevin Topham knew that. At age 21, during World War II (a VERY serious matter of survival) he took a few hours off to go dancing. Met a young woman there. They danced…...for the next 74 years! And this UTTERLY DELIGHTFUL STORY recounts Topham AND his Lady returning at age 95 to take a turn or two at the same nightclub!
Those are the sort of things CS Lewis was talking about, stregthening and feeding and polishing those things in our chests that make us not just human, but worthy humans. July 19ths have contributed to the development and care of our Chests for a long time:
1742 La Côte-Saint-André, France Birth of Jean-Baptiste Davaux, violinist and composer. Showed early promise on both the violin and mandolin. By age 25 was in Paris composing sonatas and some comic operas. Wrote three symphonies, 13 concertantes, 25 string quartets, a violin concerto and several other works. He was popular in France and well beyond; in 1782 a newspaper in British-occupied New York City notes a performance of one his works. He nimbly remained popular (and employed) through the late 1780s in France, writing and performing at the Royal Court, through the French Revolution, and still later was a favorite (both musically and in person) of Napoleon. (Part of his secret in those very trying times was shrewdly incorporating bits of popular songs of the day into some of his newer works, including La Marseillaise.)
1834 Paris Birth of Hilaire Germain Edgar Degas impressionist painter. His father was a banker and his mother a Creole from New Orleans. Degas started school late, at age 11, and his mother passed away 2 years later, so his father and several uncles finished raising him. He was interested in art and was drawing a lot, but his father wanted him to become a lawyer. He dutifully enrolled in law at the University of Paris, but cut a lot of classes.
A year later, in defiance of his father he applied to (and was accepted by) the Ecole de Beaux-Arts (dad came around to supporting him. He became a self-supporting artist, volunteered for the Franco-Prussian War, and then traveled to New Orleans to make contact with some of his relatives. He was painting all along, (“The Cotton Office in New Orleans”) and making friends with Renoir, Monet and others who were inventing the Impressionist school. Some works: "The Millinery Shop," "Combing the Hair," "Nude Fixing Her Hair," "Two Dancers", "Frieze of Dancers", and "Blue Dancers". He also collected art and by the time of his death had amassed more than 500 paintings and 5,000 prints.
1941 London The BBC has been in the fight from the start of the War but this evening the BBC World Service (including shortwave in many European languages aimed at Occupied Europe) opens its evening news broadcast dramatically. From now until the end of the War, every evening begins with the London Symphony’s recording of the opening notes of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony. The rhythm, 3 shorts and 1 long, is also Morse Code for the letter “V”, which Churchill has been using as a war slogan, “V for Victory” for most of a year now. “V” signs start appearing all across Europe.
GOOD NEWS of the Lighter and even FUN side of Life
Look, sometimes you just have to crack wise, right? Even Star Trek’s Commander Data did his best to acquire a sense of humor (the Vulcans: “Humor. It is a difficult concept.”) When Guinan consoled him there was more to being human, Data replied, “Yes, but it is something that is uniquely human.”
Sooo…...if you have a cargo plane dedicated to hauling BIG pieces of other airplanes for repairs...as in REALLY BIG spare parts, well then that cargo plane is going to be pretty big. I mean really big. I mean, this has to be one Whale of a plane.
That’s what someone else thought too, and so gave this oversized AirBus cargo plane a….uniquely human paint job:
Mind you, even on July 19ths there have been some smiling and even warm moments:
1909 OK, baseball. Three strikes, and you’re out. Three outs, and a team is out of the inning, right? Strike out, caught fly ball, or ground ball thrown to the base ahead of you, or maybe a tag, and you’re out, right? Maybe once a game or so, you’ll see a smooth bit of co-ordinated fielding: a double play, two outs on one batted ball. Maybe once a SEASON, in the league, you might see a Triple Play: two players on base, a hit ball and then batter and both runners are out. On this day Cleveland shortstop Neal Ball executes an unassisted triple play (IOW he got all three outs by himself and no other fielder touched the ball.) Ball was the first of only 15 players in the history of the game to pull it off (making it rarer than a perfect game for a pitcher: 27 batters up and all 27 retired without a hit, walk or error.)
1915 More baseball. The Washington Senators (much later the Minnesota Twins) decided to lead off their game this day against Cleveland with a surprising strategy. In the first inning at bat they set a major league record by successfully stealing 8 bases… in one inning (the 1st.) Helped them to an 11-4 win.
1941 Across America. In movie theaters tonight from coast to coast, once you paid admission, got your munchies and settled in, the cartoon/featurette for the first time featured a cat and mouse pair, Tom and Jerry, starring in “Midnight Snack”, produced by artists William Hanna and Joseph Barbera.
1969 Hollywood, Florida Englishman John Fairfax fancies himself a "professional adventurer," but this day achieves the fame he is seeking. He has designed a self-righting (from capsizing), self-bailing, enclosed rowboat. Launching from the Canary Islands (geographically part of Europe) 180 days ago, on this day the 32-year-old becomes the first person to row solo across the Atlantic Ocean.
(As adventurer, he was touched when, the day after he landed in Florida, he received a transmitted note of congratulations from 3 other adventurers: from the Apollo 11 astronauts, who were in flight to the moon to do some stuff…..)
GOOD NEWS from Politics and History and Social Trends
We await, we pine for, we YEARN with aching hearts, for the Good News from Politics that will make History any day now: Trump and the Flying Monkeys are going to be indicted federally. Then another raft of them, some of them getting the Two-fer, are going to be indicted Georgia-ally. There is a pretty good chance Trump himself and some of his family and/or minions will yet this year be indicted New Jersey-ally and District of Columbianally.
Here’s hoping several members of Congress in either chamber are ALSO indicted. (And what if 6 or more members of the US House of the GQP persuasion are indicted? So that Qevin “15 Voting Round” McCarthy does NOT have a majority?) Will we see Speaker of the House Hakeem Jeffries and a whole new cast of Committee Chairs? If so, you will be living through History.
>>>>>>» While Gen Z is early in its life cycle, still dealing with junior high, or getting through job training at McDonalds, or finishing college, they seem to already be making a mark on the larger culture. In particular, their entry into the workforce in big numbers by their oldest members coincided with the COVID lockdowns. THIS FORTUNE MAGAZINE PIECE runs down some of the trends and impact they are having already, forcing employers to re-think assumptions and policies.
Of course, we all have ancestors who lived through History, some of whom even made History. July 19ths have seen a looming share of Historical Moments and Epochs and Watersheds.
711 (A Thee-Digit Date!) Near Gibraltar, Spain At the Battle of Guadalete (which I never heard of either) King Rodrigo of the Visigoths is beaten by a new force who have crossed over the strait from Morocco. The Moslems (or Moors) have come to Europe to win over the continent for their new faith. Portugal and most of Spain (excepting the northwest corner of Galicia and Asturias) are all overrun in a few years. The Moors cross the Pyrenees and drive on Paris, finally being stopped at Tours in 732. They fall back into Spain……for the next 800 years. The Christians slowly nibble away at Moorish territory (the Spanish national saga, La Reconquista) and expel the last of them in 1492.
1848 Seneca Falls, New York Organized by Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton the first Women’s Rights convention discussed such topics as voting, property rights and divorce. It launched the women’s suffrage movement. The convention issued a "Declaration of Sentiments" based on the Declaration of Independence.
1940 Berlin In an official speech aimed at London, Adolf Hitler made a speech, “An Appeal to Reason”, calling on England to seek peace from him, OR face total destruction. The British War Cabinet looked over the speech and the formal offer, read the reports from the RAF on the first 5 days of the Luftwaffe’s air offensive over England, and then issued “No comment” about the speech and sent the offer back.
(Even before the British Government had a chance to reply, a British-German announcer for the BBC who had done the on-the-air translation, taking matters totally into his own hands, on the spot and over the air replied that Britain threw this offer back in “Hitler’s lying, stinking teeth.” British Foreign Minister Lord Halifax (rather pro-German) was appalled when he heard of this completelfy unauthorized rejection. OTOH, when this was reported to Churchill, he merely smiled and muttered, “Good.”)
Good News from Science and Engineering
You can’t have a Round Up without a look at what those brainy thinking types have come up with again, often making life not such a grind.
>>>>>>>So back in the day, Nikolai Tesla had brilliant ideas regarding physics and electricity. He and Edison clashed repeatedly, and lightning bolts of controversy crashed across the land in an AC/DC kind of way. One of Tesla’s really edgy ideas was transmitting electric power over long distances…...without using wires or cables, just, sort of, transmitting it through the air. While this has made for some great sci-fi stories and ideas, the reality is that for some years this has definitely been on the FI, not the SCI, side of science.
But now comes THIS DIARY AND STORY that Tesla’s ideas may get a fresh hearing. We will see…..its how science advances, sometimes with reversals, sometimes with side paths, sometimes dusting off some older stuff and giving it a fresh think, so….we will see.
>>>>>>>>And, if you got a charge out of the last link, here’s another galvanizing story. That little car company called Toyota has been tinkering with fuel cell batteries and EVs and lithium and iron ions and all that. NOW THIS EXCITING ARTICLE reports Toyota has made a breakthrough in battery tech: solid state design with both costs and physical size reduced by 50%. Whew!
>>>>>>>>And turning to those brainy, “think big” thinkers, what about climate change? Not the denial. Not the worsening signs. Not the measures being taken (hopefully not too little, not too late). No, what about stepping WAY BACK and thinking Bigger than Big. Peter Fiekowsky and Carole Douglis have written a book on Climate Restoration. THIS LINK will give you a book review and reflections on HOW to do it: engineering, policies, approaches. While I’ll bet the book is worth the read, at least the link will give you an introduction…...and I think a bit of hope….
Mind you, July 19ths are not going to let the 2023s have all the fun and impact from science and discovery. Years gone by have also contributed.
1595 Graz, Austria Astronomer Johannes Kepler has a “eureka” moment, and this day he or a companion wrote it down. Kepler was teaching at the University when he launched into a new theory of the geometrical basis of the universe. His insight today led directly to his noted book, “Mysterium Cosmographicum”, which was an in-depth defense of Copernicus’ “helio-centric” (“sun centered”) solar system. This took courage; Austria was overwhelmingly Roman Catholic, and that Church was still formally opposed to Copernicus’ idea, holding to a “geo-centric” earth-centered model. Being declared a heretic or enemy of the Church could lead to arrest and/or worse. But Kepler persisted…..and lived!
1799 Rashid, Egypt (Maybe the only time THIS town gets a mention in the History Corner) French soldiers from Napoleon’s army were reinforcing the walls of a fort, using local material. A couple soldiers picked up a likely looking slab when they notices it had lines carved in it. A closer squint…..and it looked like writing of some kind.
Officers and then experts in ancient texts were called in and they recognized along the top a text in Ancient Greek. Below this was more writing, in the best example yet found of Demotic script (a form of Egyptian using its own alphabet.) After study, the scholars worked out the Demotic (which they had very little deciphered heretofore) was repeating what the “Broken off”) Greek text said. The bottom section was in Ancient hieroglyphics, and going on the idea this was 3-language marker, they hammered out the equivalents of the first two texts. The Rosetta Stone (Rosetta the French name for Rashid) was the key to being able to read hieroglyphics for the first time in several thousand years. In a profound way, made archeology possible.
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So thank you for coming by the Good News Round Up.
We hope for Justice to be done, and Accountability to blaze forth (and fifth….and sixth…..)
Everyone here relishes (dill flavor, or salsa kick, optional) your thoughts, ideas, reactions, humor, digressions, questions. Really!
So hit those Reply boxes in the Comments below and let us know (and learn from, and commiserate with, and reply back) to you!
May all your News be Good, comforting and inspiring.
Shalom.
PS The 2 Cat Report
(some of you have been wondering)
Finally, on a personal note, Rascal the Cat and I moved from Western Wisconsin (where I have been house sitting and Cat sitting the last 3 ½ years, and where Rascal has been an Indoor Cat (after a couple kitten-ish years outdoors to start life) for most of his 18 years. The house belonged to SageHagRN’s mother until she passed away, and I had the flexibility to house-sit and cat-sit (3 to start with!).
So poor Rascal has to give up all the places and furniture (which, truth be told, had been steadily disappearing the last couple months via yard sales, etc.) and surroundings and move to a New Spot, complete with intensely curious and playful, 5 year old Toby the Cat. So, after 3 weeks, they are…...tolerating each other. They can eat in the same room and share the same spaces. In the last week they have had several “boop noses” moments, and even a quick sniff/inspection of each other’s tail quarters, all of which are said to be Good Signs. Toby is still wondering and hoping he’ll get a play partner. Rascal is wary but has stopped hissing, growling and swatting, and actually seems to go looking for Toby sometimes, so we’re getting there.
The remaining hurdles are leaving the bedroom door open for Rascal overnight (he sleeps with me) so the 2 can roam the house together in the dark. Also, there is a “Catio” (Cat Patio----a cage structure in the backyard with shelves and lately, even an attic—added by me to a Wayfair original whose roof gave out----built for cats. Toby gets carried there once or twice a day but Rascal has only had one visit (solo.) When they are comfortable enough with each other they can go in there together, then we can say they “have adjusted.”
Toby Tyler
Rascal Cat
