abqtommy
abqtommy's JournalFrom The Good News Network: Good News in History, June 28 (Mel Brooks' birthday)
He's 95 in 2021. I've enjoyed him on tv and in movies and think he's one of the funniest people ever.
from article: 'Happy 95th Birthday to Mel Brooks, the comic and writer who became the legendary director of comedies like Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, and The Producers.
One of the most successful film directors of the 1970s, Brooks was married to actress Anne Bancroft for 41 years until her death in 2005.
He co-wrote TV’s Get Smart, and recorded the LP The 2000 Year Old Man, which propelled him into an exclusive club of entertainers honored with the EGOT grand slam—for winning an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony.'
no more text but photos and video at link https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/events060628/
My favorite Mel Brooks movie is The History of the Word, Part 1. I love The Inquisition Song and video in that movie.
From The Guardian: 'The case for Brexit was built on lies.
Five years later, deceit is routine in our politics. written by Will Hutton
from article: After five years, the biggest casualties of Brexit are in plain sight. Integrity and decency in public life are crumbling. Because so much of the case for Brexit is false, the political modus operandi of the Brexiters, now dominating our political culture, has become a refusal to accept responsibility for mistakes, overclaiming, deceit and sometimes outright lies to justify the unjustifiable. Once the electorate can no longer trust what they are told, democratic debate is denied. We have been robbed of a core right of citizenship.
It is a form of coup, but with a cloud of nationalist hyperbole disguising the threat to parliamentary democracy. To hold power, or challenge it, in a democracy requires continual argument and discussion, the precondition of which is a commitment to truth-telling and a shared acceptance of facts, however differently they may be interpreted. Trash those preconditions and we inevitably slide into a universe of division and distrust impervious to rational argument. We are all belittled.
It is as the Brexit right wants. Brexit has given it a cause and a political coalition that leaves it more firmly in control of power than at any time since peak Thatcherism. It is not only partisan rightwing policies – from the impending assault on public service broadcasting to the criminal failure to provide the additional teaching to compensate for Covid-induced teaching losses – it is the gerrymandering that favours the Tory interest.
Voter suppression; rendering the Electoral Commission even more toothless; ensuring all trustees and chairs of public bodies are Conservative; weakening judicial review; abolishing the Fixed-term Parliaments Act; eliminating any proportionality in the voting system for mayors; not accepting the doctrine of ministerial accountability. And all couched in a language of defiant nationalism so that critics can be dismissed as unBritish friends of the foreigner and outriders for wokedom.
Will Hutton is an Observer columnist'
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jun/27/case-for-brexit-built-on-lies-five-years-later-deceit-is-routine-in-our-politics
Some snipping has occurred. This is a long, worthwhile read that supports my own understanding
of all things Brexit.
From The Good News Network: Good News in History, June 23 (The Birthdate Of Alan Turing)
from article: 109 years ago today, Alan Turing, the father of theoretical computer science and artificial intelligence, was born in England. The mathematician, computer scientist, biologist, and code breaker was highly influential, especially after formalizing the concepts of algorithm and computation with the Turing machine, which can be considered a model of a general-purpose computer.
Turing famously played a crucial role in cracking the Enigma code used by the Nazis to send secret messages during World War II, which enabled the Allies to win many crucial battles. Professor Jack Copeland has estimated that Turing’s work shortened the war in Europe by more than two years and saved over 14 million lives.
Despite his accomplishments, he was never fully recognized in England before he died of poisoning at age 41, because his work was under the Official Secrets Act. He also was prosecuted in 1952 for homosexual acts, a criminal offense at the time, and stripped of his security clearance. His life was portrayed by Benedict Cumberbatch in the 2014 film The Imitation Game, which earned 8 Oscar nominations. England has officially apologized for its terrible treatment of Turing whose portrait is being unveiled today on the new £50 English note.
no more text but photo and video at link: https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/events060623/
From The BBC: Spiro Mounds: 'North America's lost civilisation
A treasure lost to time: Looters destroyed America's largest collection of Native American relics. Now, many have been reunited in a new museum exhibit.
In 1933 on the eastern edge of the US state of Oklahoma, a group of failed gold prospectors watched as their partner struck a pickaxe into clay. Witnesses say the air hissed as it escaped from a burial chamber that had been sealed for 500 years.
The compatriots pushed their way through the debris into a Native American mound, amazed by what they saw. Inside lay unimaginable treasure. Hundreds of engraved conch shells, thousands of pearl and shell beads, copper breast plates, large human effigy pipes and piles of brightly coloured blankets and robes. Newspapers would later call the find an American "King Tut's tomb".
"Nothing like this had ever been discovered anywhere else in North America," said Eric Singleton, curator of ethnology at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City. But the treasure soon disappeared.'
I'm 72 years old and this is the first time that I remember hearing about this. There's a lot more
text and photos at the link:
https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20210621-spiro-mounds-north-americas-lost-civilisation
From The Good News Network: Happy Juneteenth day... June 19
...Happy Juneteenth day, historically known as Emancipation Day, commemorating the day African Americans first heard about the end of slavery 155 years ago today—after it was announced by Union Army general Gordon Granger, proclaiming freedom for slaves in Texas.
Originating in Galveston, Juneteenth is celebrated annually on June 19 across the South and other parts of the U.S since 1866.
President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation declared an end to slavery in the Confederate States four years earlier, but was still legal and practiced in two Union border states – until 1865, when ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution abolished chattel slavery nationwide. Interestingly, Indian Territories that had sided with the South, especially the Choctaw, were the last to release those enslaved. (1866)
Photos but no more text at link https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/events060619/
From The BBC: Life in lockdown: The pandemic through our eyes
This is an informative photo essay featuring 3 different student photographers. View the pics and
stay to read the text. Enjoy, I know I have.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-57530756
From The BBC: Valuable 350-year-old oil paintings found in 'skip' ('dumpster' for us Yanks)
This is very interesting and informative, especially when I had to search out just what a 'skip' is.
From article: 'German police have issued an appeal for information after two valuable 17th Century paintings were discovered dumped in a road-side skip.
The oil paintings are believed to be by Dutch artist Samuel van Hoogstraten and Italian Pietro Bellotti, police said.
A man found the paintings at a motorway service station on the A7 south of Würzburg in Bavaria last month.
He handed them in to police in the city of Cologne. No one has yet claimed the artworks.'
More text and photos at link: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-57536940
From The BBC: Your pictures of Scotland 11 - 18 June (2021)
TGIF/Thank Goodness It's Friday and that means another fine photo collection of the flora and fauna
of Scotland. Enjoy!
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-57430804
The Good News Network: 80 years ago, singer-songwriter Harry Nilsson was born in Brooklyn
on June 15.
His experimental work with pioneering overdubs in the 1970s, can be heard on Without You, One (is the Loneliest Number), and Everybody’s Talkin‘ from the film Midnight Cowboy.
John Lennon, who produced and played on Nilsson’s Pussy Cats LP, once was asked at a 1968 press conference to name his favorite American artist. He replied, “Nilsson”. Paul McCartney was also asked—and he said, “Nilsson”.
Nilsson’s multi-octave voice was never so full of life as it was on the Nilsson Schmilsson LP, which earned him a 1973 Grammy nomination for Album of the Year. Without You won the Grammy for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance. The musician tragically died of heart failure at age 52. WATCH a mini bio, Who Is Harry Nilsson—And Why Is Everybody Talkin’ About Him?… (1941)
Photos and video at link https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/events060615/
From The BBC: Your pictures of Scotland 4 June - 11 June (2021)
Finally my/our patience is rewarded. When I viewed The BBC webpage earlier this morning this
gallery wasn't available. But when I checked back here it was. Enjoy!
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-57357289
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