Daily Entries for the week of
Sunday, April 24, 2022
through
Saturday, April 30, 2022
__________________________________________________________
It’s Saturday, April 30, 2022
Welcome to the 1,426th consecutive post to the blog
existentialautotrip.com
______________________________________
Lead Picture*
Mario Puzo
Puzo in 1972
Gotfryd, Bernard, photographer - Mario Puzo, author [of "Godfather" at party, New York City]
Title: Mario Puzo, author [of "Godfather" at party, New York City] Creator(s): Gotfryd, Bernard, photographer Date Created/Published: [14 March 1972] Medium: 1 photograph : color transparency ; 35mm (slide format) Reproduction Number: LC-DIG-gtfy-03167 (digital file from original) Rights Advisory: No known restrictions on publication. For information see "Bernard Gotfryd," (https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/res.592.gotf) Access Advisory: Please use digital image: original slide is kept in cold storage for preservation. Call Number: LC-GB05- 3167 [P&P] Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA Notes: Title based on information from slide mount and other caption information provided by the photographer. Photo agency: Woodfin Camp & Associates, 116 East 27th Street, New York. Gotfryd set no.: CF-890-001-A+ Gift; Bernard Gotfryd; 2004; (DLC/PP-2004:032). Subjects: United States--New York (State)--New York. authors Personalities Format: Slides--Color--1970-1980. Part of: Bernard Gotfryd photograph collection (Library of Congress) Bookmark This Record: https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2020732708/
_____________________________________
Commentary
I’m writing this just before I head out to the MFA for a long overdue visit. Will go to the Turner exhibit and then Art in Bloom.
This marks a watershed in my daily routine.
I am now able to balance the work on my blog, my daily submission to an agent, and a rewrite of the book’s sequel along with a social activity.
I am happy.
_____________________________________
Reading and Writing
My submission process is getting more organized.
_____________________________________
Screen time
I’m suffering from a surfeit TV shows that I am enjoying: Barry, The Offer, Flight Attendant, and Better Call Saul. And I recently finished My Brilliant Friend, Mrs. Maisel, and the Gilded Age.
______________________________________
Wellness
I didn’t sleep well on Friday night.
_____________________________________
Social Life
After having dinner with my niece Lisa and her husband, David, she introduced me to an auction site that was offering glassware. I put some bids in on five or six of the lots. We’ll know on Sunday evening.
______________________________________
Chuckles and Thoughts
I recently took up ice sculpting.
Last night I made an ice cube.
This morning I made 12, I was prolific.
~Mitch Hedberg
_____________________________________
Mail and other Conversation
We love getting mail, email, or texts.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
or text to 617.852.7192
This from friend Jim P:
Dom,
I just came back from seeing the film Everything, Everywhere, All at Once. One of the best movies I have seen not only in a long time but for all time. I would definitely put in in my top ten as a well made movie, and my top five for its affective power. I could have watched it right from the start as soon as it finished. It is a mother-daughter movie but also a father-daughter movie. It is a lot more too. Certainly good for a blog review.
Your friend,
Jim
Blog meister responds: We’ll definitely see what we can do. Thanks, Jim.
____________________________________
Dinner/Food/Recipes
My favorite dessert has always been the chocolate ice cream soda, with mint ice cream. Brigham’s in Boston made a classic. As I got older, I couldn’t take the calories. Until I discovered Chocolate Oat milk. It’s creamy nature obviates the need for heavy cream. But the drink also requires ice cream. A no-no for me until I discovered Halo, with its 300 calories in the entire pint. And it’s real ice cream.
The catch?
It has the volume but lacks the density of great ice cream. But it’ll do for me. And it has.
____________________________________
Pictures with Captions from our community**
Amaya’s classic cat picture
Amaya took this photo on Thursday.
She was just walking by the street, looked up, and saw this cat staring at her.
__________________________________
Short Essay*
Mario Francis Puzo (October 15, 1920 – July 2, 1999) was an American author, screenwriter, and journalist. He is known for his crime novels about the Italian-American Mafia and Sicilian Mafia, most notably The Godfather (1969), which he later co-adapted into a film trilogy directed by Francis Ford Coppola. He received the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for the first film in 1972 and for Part II in 1974. Puzo also wrote the original screenplay for the 1978 Superman film and its 1980 sequel. His final novel, The Family, was released posthumously in 2001.
In 1950, his first short story, "The Last Christmas," was published in American Vanguard. After the war, he wrote his first book, The Dark Arena, which was published in 1955.
In 1960, Bruce Jay Friedman hired Puzo as an assistant editor of a group of men's pulp magazines with titles such as Male, Men. Under the pen name Mario Cleri, Puzo wrote World War II adventure features for magazine True Action.
In 1969, Puzo's best-known work, The Godfather was published. Puzo stated that this story came from research into organized crime, not from personal experience, and that he was looking to write something that would appeal to the masses. The novel remained on The New York Times Best Seller list for 67 weeks and sold over nine million copies in two years.[9] The book was later developed into the film The Godfather (1972), directed by Francis Ford Coppola. The film received three awards of the 11 Oscar category nominations, including Puzo's Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay. Coppola and Puzo then collaborated on sequels to the original film, The Godfather Part II (1974) and The Godfather Part III (1990).
Coppola and Puzo preferred the title The Death of Michael Corleone for the third film, but Paramount Pictures found that unacceptable.[10] In September 2020, for the film's 30th anniversary, it was announced that a new cut of the film titled Mario Puzo's The Godfather, Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone would have a limited theatrical release in December 2020 followed by digital and Blu-ray. Coppola said the film is the version he and Puzo had originally envisioned, and it "vindicates" its status among the trilogy.
In mid-1972, Puzo wrote the first draft of the script for the 1974 disaster film Earthquake, but he was unable to continue working on it because of his commitment to The Godfather Part II. Work continued on the script, with writer George Fox taking the helm, with a final draft completed by director Mark Robson. Puzo retained screen credit in the completed film, and featured heavily in the advertising. Puzo also wrote the original screenplay for Richard Donner's Superman, which then also included the plot for Superman II, as they were originally written as one film. He also collaborated on the stories for the 1982 film A Time to Die and the 1984 Francis Ford Coppola film The Cotton Club.
In 1991, Puzo's speculative fiction The Fourth K was published; it centres on a fictional member of the Kennedy family dynasty who becomes President of the United States early in the 2000s.
Puzo never saw the publication of his penultimate book, Omertà, but the manuscript was finished before his death, as was the manuscript for The Family. However, in a review originally published in the San Francisco Chronicle, Jules Siegel, who had worked closely with Puzo at Magazine Management Company, speculated that Omertà may have been completed by "some talentless hack". Siegel also acknowledged the temptation to "rationalize avoiding what is probably the correct analysis — that [Puzo] wrote it and it is terrible".
* The Blog Meister selects the topics for the Lead Picture and the Short Essay and then leans heavily or exclusively on Wikipedia to provide the content. The Blog Meister usually edits the entries.
**Pictures with Captions from our community are photos sent in by our blog followers. Feel free to send in yours to domcapossela@hotmail.com
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
__________________________________________________________
It’s Friday, April 29, 2022
Welcome to the 1,425th consecutive post to the blog
existentialautotrip.com
______________________________________
Lead Picture*
The Offer
This is a poster for The Offer (miniseries). The poster art copyright is believed to belong to Paramount Television Studios.
https://deadline.com/video/the-offer-trailer-miles-teller-albert-s-ruddy-paramount-plus-making-of-the-godfather-series/
______________________________________
Commentary
Our family used to be so small we could all fit in a living room.
It’s grown so large that many of us at the annual event will not know the names of others.
Wow.
And I know so many families in similar situations.
_____________________________________
Screen time
Am watching the Offer. I’m enjoying the workings of film making. Especially since I am searching pitching my book and the methods have a lot in common.
______________________________________
Wellness
My malaise of a couple of days ago, when I felt unusually tired, is gone. I’m sure the fatigue was the result of my 4th vaccination.
_____________________________________
Social Life
My son called. He and his cousin have set the date for our next all-in family party, in August. It’s fast becoming one of the great events of our family’s history.
______________________________________
Chuckles and Thoughts
I used to be a hot-tar roofer. Yeah, I remember that... day.
~Mitch Hedberg
_____________________________________
Mail and other Conversation
We love getting mail, email, or texts.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
or text to 617.852.7192
The airwaves were full of the excitement of a date for the annual family event.
Blog meister responds: And I am excited to with the idea of bringing everyone together.
_____________________________________
Dinner/Food/Recipes
On Thursday, I had Chicken Pot Pie for dinner. I used a popover in place of the pastry that it usually comes with. I don’t bake.
____________________________________
Pictures with Captions from our community**
Duck dinner preparations
__________________________________
Short Essay*
The Offer is a biographical drama miniseries about the development and production of Francis Ford Coppola's landmark New York City gangster film The Godfather (1972) for Paramount Pictures. The miniseries premiered on April 28, 2022, on Paramount+.
Production
The project was announced in September 2020 to air on Paramount+, and for the story to be described from the perspective of producer Albert S. Ruddy. Armie Hammer was cast to play him in December 2020, but dropped out the following month; he was replaced by Miles Teller in May 2021. In April 2021, Dexter Fletcher was hired to direct several episodes. Matthew Goode, Giovanni Ribisi, Colin Hanks, Dan Fogler and Juno Temple joined the production in June, and in July Burn Gorman joined as Charles Bludhorn. Justin Chambers will have a recurring role as Marlon Brando. In October, Eric Balfour, Michael Gandolfini and Zack Schor joined the cast, with Balfour playing production designer Dean Tavoularis.
Filming for the series began in July 2021 but was paused on July 29 due to a positive COVID-19 test. On August 23, 2021, it was reported that plans to film at the Chateau Marmont hotel in Los Angeles between August 25 to 27 were scrapped after learning about an ongoing labor dispute there. The miniseries was released on April 28, 2022, with the first three episodes of the ten-episode miniseries available immediately and the rest debuting on a weekly basis on Thursdays.
Reception
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 48% of 22 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 6.1/10. The website's consensus reads, "Overstuffed with unnecessary subplots and cloying winks at showbiz history, this is an Offer you can refuse." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 57 out of 100 based on 16 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".
* The Blog Meister selects the topics for the Lead Picture and the Short Essay and then leans heavily or exclusively on Wikipedia to provide the content. The Blog Meister usually edits the entries.
**Pictures with Captions from our community are photos sent in by our blog followers. Feel free to send in yours to domcapossela@hotmail.com
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
__________________________________________________________
It’s Thursday, April 28, 2022
Welcome to the 1,425th consecutive post to the blog
existentialautotrip.com
______________________________________
Lead Picture*
Sybil Ludington
Statue of Sybil Ludington in Carmel, New York, the Putnam County seat
Anthony22 - Originally from en.wikipedia; description page is (was) here first upload in en wikipedia on 20:08, 23 April 2006 by Anthony22 (I took this photograph of the statue of Sybil Ludington on Gleneida Avenue in Carmel, New York. GFDL-self — GNU Free Documentation License)
Statue of Sybil Ludington on Gleneida Avenue in Carmel, New York by Anna Hyatt Huntington
Permission details
[1]
______________________________________
Commentary
Celtics fans are in a happy moment.
We played a very good Brooklyn Nets team and
swept them in four games.
We are anticipating a terrific matchup with the Milwaukee Bucks.
It's been too long since a Boston sports team had a reasonable aspiration to a championship banner.
_____________________________________
Reading and Writing
I have finished the last preparation for my submissions to book agents.
And on Wednesday I sent out my first submission with my completed documents.
_____________________________________
Screen time
I’m watching ‘Barry’. It’s pretty good.
Am also watching Better Call Saul and Flight Attendant.
______________________________________
Wellness
On Tuesday I got my fourth shot, my 2nd booster.
On Wednesday, I felt very tired all day.
Am wondering if I am feeling effects of the 4th shot.
_____________________________________
Social Life
I’ve had nice visits since Sunday past. My daughter and Will and I had brunch at the Sidewalk Bar. My niece and her husband David had dinner at my house on Tuesday night. And on Wednesday, my friend Tucker and I went to Figs.
Friday I am taking time to visit the Turner exhibit at the MFA and I’ll also spend some time admiring the Art in Bloom exhibit.
______________________________________
Chuckles and Thoughts
I like to play blackjack.
I'm not addicted to gambling.
I'm addicted to sitting in a semi-circle.
~Mitch Hedberg
_____________________________________
Mail and other Conversation
We love getting mail, email, or texts.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
or text to 617.852.7192
From a friend on my extravagant expenditure taking my daughter out to brunch.
Hi,
Glad you enjoyed the $12 cup of coffee - that is crazy.
xooox
Blog meister responds: It actually suited the moment.
____________________________________
Dinner/Food/Recipes
Wednesday Tucker and I had dinner at Figs on Charles St.
The pizza was excellent.
The sadness was that this formerly buoyant restaurant had only two other parties for their entire lunch hour.
This has been a severely badly managed restaurant and it’s paying the price.
____________________________________
Pictures with Captions from our community**
Public Garden Deep View
__________________________________
Short Essay*
The Battle of Ridgefield was a battle and a series of skirmishes between American and British forces during the American Revolutionary War. The main battle was fought in the village of Ridgefield, Connecticut, on April 27, 1777. More skirmishing occurred the next day between Ridgefield and the coastline near Westport, Connecticut.
On April 25, 1777, a British force landed between Fairfield and Norwalk (now Westport) under the command of New York's Royal Governor Major General William Tryon. They marched to Danbury, where they destroyed Continental Army supplies after chasing off a small garrison of troops. Word spread concerning the British troop movements, and Connecticut militia leaders sprang into action. Major General David Wooster, Brigadier General Gold Selleck Silliman, and Brigadier General Benedict Arnold raised a combined force of roughly 700 Continental Army regular and irregular local militia forces to oppose the raiders, but they could not reach Danbury in time to prevent the destruction of the supplies. Instead, they set out to harass the British on their return to the coast.
The company led by General Wooster twice attacked Tryon's rear guard during their march south on April 27. Wooster was mortally wounded in the second encounter, and he died five days later. The main encounter then took place at Ridgefield, where several hundred militia under Arnold's command confronted the British; they were driven away in a running battle down the town's main street, but not before inflicting casualties on the British. Additional militia forces arrived, and the next day they continued to harass the British as they returned to Compo Point on the beach in Westport where the fleet awaited them. Arnold regrouped the militia and some artillery to make a stand against the British near their landing site, but his position was flanked and his force scattered by artillery fire and a bayonet charge.
The expedition was a tactical success for the British forces, but the raid galvanized Patriot support in Connecticut.
* The Blog Meister selects the topics for the Lead Picture and the Short Essay and then leans heavily or exclusively on Wikipedia to provide the content. The Blog Meister usually edits the entries.
**Pictures with Captions from our community are photos sent in by our blog followers. Feel free to send in yours to domcapossela@hotmail.com
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It’s Wednesday, April 27, 2022
Welcome to the 1,424th consecutive post to the blog
existentialautotrip.com
______________________________________
Lead Picture*
Dorothy Counts
Counts walks to school on her first day, amid jeers from other students. (Photo by Douglas Martin, winner of 1958 World Press Photo of the Year)
Douglas Martin, The Charlotte News - Mashable: 59 years ago in Charlotte, a seminal moment in the fight against segregation Originally published via the Associated Press, September 5, 1957. For example, published in The Greenville News.
Dorothy Counts, a 15-year-old African American student, walks to school at Harry Harding High School in Charlotte, North Carolina on September 4, 1957, amid jeers from students and others opposed to school integration. To the right is her friend Edwin Tompkins. This photograph was selected as the 1957 World Press Photo of the Year.
______________________________________
Commentary
My daughter attended her Grandmother’s memorial.
She was moved.
Death always brings to mind Gray’s “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard.”
The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea,
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.
I love that piece.
_____________________________________
Screen time
Flight Attendant has well-done mystery plots and Kaley Cuoco has found a vehicle for her acting talents.
______________________________________
Chuckles and Thoughts
I had a stick of CareFree gum, but it didn't work.
I felt pretty good while I was blowing that bubble,
but as soon as the gum lost its flavor,
I was back to pondering my mortality.
~Mitch Hedberg
____________________________________
Mail and other Conversation
We love getting mail, email, or texts.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
or text to 617.852.7192
This one from a source that will remain anonymous:
How did you like the Street Bar? I’ve been several times and the service has been horrible most of the visits.
Blog meister responds: service was VERY slow but we were in no hurry so it suited.
At $12.00 for a cup of coffee: i certainly don't want to be rushed out.
___________________________________
Dinner/Food/Recipes
Three of us had lunch at the Sidewalk Bar @ the Newbury.
We went there because we wanted to be sure to have a nice table for Sunday brunch.
We had a lot to talk about.
The space was excellent.
Our waitress was excellent.
The food was excellent.
The delays in the kitchen and at the bar were unconscionable.
We didn’t mind at all because we had a ;ot to talk about.
The prices are VERY high: $12.00 for a cup of coffee.
But, under the right circumstances, I would return.
BTW: Kat and Will reported that their dinner the night before at the Field and Vine in Somerville was a knockout.
____________________________________
Pictures with Captions from our community**
Dancers at Boston’s Downtown Crossing
__________________________________
Short Essay*
Dorothy "Dot" Counts-Scoggins (born March 25, 1942) is an American civil rights pioneer, and one of the first black students admitted to the Harry Harding High School.[1]
After four days of harassment that threatened her safety, her parents withdrew her from the school, but the images of Dorothy being verbally assaulted by her white classmates were seen around the world.
Counts-Scoggins was born in Charlotte, North Carolina and grew up near Johnson C. Smith University where both her parents worked. She was one of four children born to Herman L. Counts Sr. and Olethea Counts and was the couple's only daughter. Her father was a professor of philosophy and religion at the university and her mother was a homemaker and eventually became a dormitory director for the university.
Counts-Scoggins says education was a huge part of her entire family; various aunts and uncles were educators. Because she was the only daughter in the family, she says she was often protected by her three brothers and parents.
In 1956, forty Black students from North Carolina applied for transfers to a white school after the passing of the Pearsall Plan. The family applied Counts-Scoggins and two of her brothers to enroll in an all White school after her father was approached by Kelly Alexander Sr. Of her family, only Count-Scoggins was accepted.
When she was fifteen, on September 4, 1957, a Thursday, Counts-Scoggins was one of four black students enrolled at various all-white schools in the district; she was enrolled at Harry Harding High School in Charlotte, North Carolina.[2] The three other students—Gus Roberts, his sister Girvaud Roberts and Delois Huntley—attended schools including Central High School, Piedmont Junior High School and Alexander Graham Junior High.[3]
Counts-Scoggins was dropped off on her first day of school by her father, along with their family friend Edwin Thompkins. As their car was blocked from going closer to the front entrance, Edwin offered to escort Counts-Scoggins to the front of the school while her father parked the car. As she got out of the car to head down the hill, her father told her, "Hold your head high. You are inferior to no one."[1]
There were roughly 200 to 300 people in the crowd mostly students. The harassment started when Emma Marie Taylor Warlick, the wife of John Z. Warlick, an officer of the White Citizens Council, urged the boys to "keep her out" and at the same time, implored the girls to spit on her, saying: "Spit on her, girls, spit on her." Counts-Scoggins walked by without reacting, but told the press later that many people threw rocks at her—most of which landed in front of her feet—and that students formed walls but parted ways at the last instant to allow her to walk past. Photographer Douglas Martin won the 1957 World Press Photo of the Year with an image of Counts being mocked by a crowd on her first day of school.[6]
After entering the building, she went into the auditorium to sit with her class. She was met with the same harassment that occurred outside the school building, constantly hearing racial slurs shouted to her. She said that no adults assisted or protected her during this time. She mentioned after going to her homeroom to receive her books and schedule she was ignored. After the school day around noon, her parents asked if she wanted to continue going to Harry Harding High School, and Counts-Scoggins said that she wanted to go back because she hoped after the students got to know her her time there would improve.
Counts-Scoggins fell ill the following day. With a fever and aching throat, she stayed home from school that Friday, but returned on Monday. After returning to school, there wasn't a crowd present outside the school. However students and faculty were shocked at her return and proceeded to harass the fifteen-year-old girl. While in class she was placed at the back of the classroom, and was ignored by her teacher. On Tuesday, during lunch a group of boys circled her and spat in her food. She proceeded to go outside and met another new student who was part of her homeroom class who talked to Counts-Scoggins about being new to Charlotte and the school. When Counts-Scoggins returned home she told her parents that she felt better that she made a friend, and had someone to talk to. After her experience during her lunch period, Counts-Scoggins encouraged her parents to pick her up during her lunch period so that she could eat.
On Wednesday, Counts-Scoggins saw the young girl in the hallway and the young girl proceeded to ignore Counts-Scoggins and hung her head. During her lunch period that day, a blackboard eraser was thrown at her and landed on the back of her head. As she proceeded to go outside and met her oldest brother for lunch, she saw a crowd surrounding the family car, and the back windows were shattered. Counts-Scoggins says this was the first time she was afraid, because now her family was being attacked.
Counts-Scoggins told her family what had occurred and her father called the superintendent and the police department to share with them what had happened. The superintendent told the family he was not aware of what was happening at Harry Harding High School, and the police chief said that they could not guarantee Counts-Scoggins' protection. After having this conversation, her father decided to take her out of the high school. He said in a statement:
"It is with compassion for our native land and love for our daughter Dorothy that we withdraw her as a student at Harding High School. As long as we felt she could be protected from bodily injury and insults within the school's walls and upon the school premises, we were willing to grant her desire to study at Harding."
* The Blog Meister selects the topics for the Lead Picture and the Short Essay and then leans heavily or exclusively on Wikipedia to provide the content. The Blog Meister usually edits the entries.
**Pictures with Captions from our community are photos sent in by our blog followers. Feel free to send in yours to domcapossela@hotmail.com
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
__________________________________________________________
It’s Tuesday, April 26, 2022
Welcome to the 1,423rd consecutive post to the blog
existentialautotrip.com
_____________________________________
Lead Picture*
Charging Bull
English: This is a photo of the Charging Bull by Arturo Di Modica with no people around it during the 2019-20 Coronavirus Pandemic (COVID-19) during a city imposed travel and work restriction. A rare sight since this is one of the most iconic and photographed tourist attractions in New York City.
AndrewHenkelman - Own work
______________________________________
Commentary
What is ESG?
It’s good. Very good.
ESG stands for Environmental Social and Governance, and refers to the three key factors when measuring the sustainability and ethical impact of an investment in a business or company. Most socially responsible investors check companies out using ESG criteria to screen investments.
It is a generic term used in capital markets and commonly used by investors to evaluate the behavior of companies, as well as determining their future financial performance.
The Environmental Social and Governance factors are a subset of non-financial performance indicators which include ethical, sustainable and corporate government issues such as making sure there are systems in place to ensure accountability and managing the corporation’s carbon footprint.
The number of investment funds that incorporate ESG factors has been growing rapidly since the beginning of this decade, and is expected to continue rising significantly over the decade to come.
ESG’s three central factors are:
Environmental criteria, which examines how a business performs as a steward of our natural environment, focusing on:
waste and pollution
resource depletion
greenhouse gas emission
deforestation
climate change
Social criteria, which looks at how the company treats people, and concentrates on:
employee relations & diversity
working conditions, including child labor and slavery
local communities; seeks explicitly to fund projects or institutions that will serve poor and underserved communities globally
health and safety
conflict
Governance criteria, which examines how a corporation polices itself – how the company is governed, and focuses on:
tax strategy
executive remuneration
donations and political lobbying
corruption and bribery
board diversity and structure
______________________________________
Chuckles and Thoughts
I like to hold the microphone cord like this,
I pinch it together, then I let it go,
then you hear a whole bunch of jokes at once.
~Mitch Hedberg
__________________________________
Pictures with Captions from our community**
Brewers fountain in Boston Common inactive and lonely
_____________________________________
Dinner/Food/Recipes
This is a perfect Lobster, Mac, and Cheese recipe.
Serves 2
Boil 4oz of elbow macaroni
Steam a live lobster, reserving 1 cup of the lobster-water
Remove the tomalley
Remove the meat from tail and claws and cut the meat into bite-sized pieces
Save the body and legs for sucking
Butter a 1-quart casserole
Heat the oven to 400 degrees.
Cut up the cheeses
SAUCE
Melt 1/4 stick butter in a high-sided skillet over medium heat.
When butter bubbles, add 1 ½ T flour
Cook, stirring, for 1 minute.
Slowly pour 6oz hot oat milk or dairy milk into flour-butter mixture while whisking.
Then add 2oz sweet wine
Continue cooking, whisking constantly, until the mixture bubbles and becomes thick.
Add in the lobster-water
Remove the pan from the heat
Stir in 1/2t salt, dash nutmeg, 1/8 t black pepper, dash cayenne pepper,
Add into pan:
6oz cheeses: Some combination of gruyere, mozzarella, pecorino romano, cheddar, American
4oz elbow macaroni
Add in the lobster meat
Pour contents of pan into casserole
Chop and sprinkle the remaining cheeses on top
Scatter panko breadcrumbs over the top.
Bake until browned on top, about 15 minutes.
Eat it!
__________________________________
Short Essay*
Environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) is an approach to evaluating the extent to which a corporation works on behalf of social goals that go beyond the role of a corporation to maximize profits on behalf of the corporation's shareholders. Typically, the social goals advocated within an ESG perspective include working to achieve a certain set of environmental goals, as well as a set of goals having to do with supporting certain social movements, and a third set of goals having to do with whether the corporation is governed in a way that is consistent with the goals of the diversity, equity, and inclusion movement.
A variety of governmental organizations and financial institutions have devised ways to measure the extent to which a specific corporation is aligned with ESG goals. According to a 2021 study done by the NYU Stern Center for Sustainable Business, which looked at over 1,000 studies, "studies use different scores for different companies by different data providers."
Research shows that such intangible assets comprise an increasing percentage of future enterprise value. While there are many ways to think of intangible asset metrics, these three central factors together, ESG, comprise a label that has been adopted throughout the United States financial industry. They are used for a myriad of specific purposes with the ultimate objective of measuring elements related to sustainability and societal impact of a company or business. MSCI, a global ESG rating agency uses the term from investment perspective and defines ESG Investing as the consideration of environmental, social and governance factors alongside financial factors in the investment decision-making process. Likewise, S&P highlights that through ESG investing, market participants consider in their decision-making the ways in which environmental, social, and governance risks and opportunities can have material impacts on companies' performance. Investors who use ESG in their decision-making are able to invest sustainably while maintaining the same level of financial returns as they would with a standard investment approach.
The term ESG was first coined in 2005 in a landmark study entitled “Who Cares Wins" conference in 2005, a conference that first brought together institutional investors, asset managers, buy-side and sell-side research analysts, global consultants and government bodies and regulators to examine the role of environmental, social and governance value drivers in asset management and financial research.
In less than 20 years, the ESG movement has grown from a corporate social responsibility initiative launched by the United Nations into a global phenomenon representing more than US$30 trillion in assets under management. In the year 2019 alone, capital totaling US$17.67 billion flowed into ESG-linked products, an almost 525 percent increase from 2015, according to Morningstar. Critics claim ESG linked-products have not had and are unlikely to have the intended impact of raising the cost of capital for polluting firms, and have accused the movement of greenwashing.
* The Blog Meister selects the topics for the Lead Picture and the Short Essay and then leans heavily or exclusively on Wikipedia to provide the content. The Blog Meister usually edits the entries.
**Pictures with Captions from our community are photos sent in by our blog followers. Feel free to send in yours to domcapossela@hotmail.com
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
__________________________________________________________
It’s Monday, April 25, 2022
Welcome to the 1,422nd consecutive post to the blog
existentialautotrip.com
______________________________________
Lead Picture*
Emmett Till
Emmett Till, 13-years-old, on Christmas Day, 1954. Photograph taken by Mamie Till Bradley.
Original photograph taken by Mamie Till Bradley, digital version taken from questionable source but verified by User:Moni3 to be Till per image inserts in Till-Mobley, Mamie; Benson, Christopher (2003). The Death of Innocence: The Story of the Hate Crime That Changed America, Random House. ISBN 1400061172 and Whitfield, Stephen (1991). A Death in the Delta: The story of Emmett Till, JHU Press. ISBN 080184326X,
______________________________________
Commentary
Among protective advices that white parents do not have to explain to their children is ‘the talk’. No, not that talk. The ‘Emmett Till’ Talk, short and immeasurably frightening: “Be careful around white girls.”
Historical context is key here. Black men by the dozen were lynched all over the U.S. for perceived flirtations with white women even if there was no evidence to prove it. The brutal torture and killing of Emmett Till, the arrest, trial, and ‘not guilty’ jury finding of the two white perpetrators, and, finally, when they could no longer be prosecuted, their admission of guilt was, only one of the thousands of egregious crimes piled onto Americans of color. Horrible.
_____________________________________
Screen time
I watched the Aviator. A great movie.
_____________________________________
Understanding aging
I took a ninety-minute walk with my daughter Kat on Friday evening. It stretched me to the limit. And I woke at 3.00am with a severe leg cramp on my inner thigh, but fortunately not a charley horse. Walking getting more difficult for me.
____________________________________
Extracurricula or Social Life This Week
Sunday, 24th to Saturday 30th
Sunday I had dinner with daughter Kat and Will @ the Street Bar.
Tuesday I had dinner with my niece Lisa and her husband David.
Thursday I will share a Figs’ Pizza with my dear friend, Tucker.
And Friday, alone, I will go to the Turner exhibit @ the MFA.
I’ve got to squeeze in another visit on Saturday for the Art in Bloom exhibit.
MAKING PLANS: w Cathy and Mike to have another dinner out. But not this week.
And also to get my booster shot: I was cancelled last week: no vaccine.
______________________________________
Chuckles and Thoughts
I think foosball is a combination of soccer and shish kabobs.
~Mitch Hedberg
_____________________________________
Mail and other Conversation
We love getting mail, email, or texts.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
or text to 617.852.7192
This from Sally C:
Ooo, Dom! That early morning photo of the state house really is stunning! Thanks for sharing!
Sally
Blog meister responds: An accident, Sally. But thank you.
_____________________________________
Dinner/Food/Recipes
Saturday’s dinner was a delicious Bean Soup that I made with two sausages on the side: Italian pork spicy and chorizo.
____________________________________
Pictures with Captions from our community**
Roast chicken @ Waypoint
__________________________________
Short Essay*
Emmett Louis Till (July 25, 1941 – August 28, 1955) was a 14-year-old African American boy who was abducted, tortured and lynched in Mississippi in 1955, after being accused of offending a white woman in her family's grocery store. The brutality of his murder and the fact that his killers were acquitted drew attention to the long history of violent persecution of African Americans in the United States. Till posthumously became an icon of the civil rights movement.
Till was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois. During summer vacation in August 1955, he was visiting relatives near Money, Mississippi, in the Mississippi Delta region. He spoke to 21-year-old Carolyn Bryant, the white, married proprietor of a small grocery store there. Although what happened at the store is a matter of dispute, Till was accused of flirting with or whistling at Bryant. Till's interaction with Bryant, perhaps unwittingly, violated the unwritten code of behavior for a black male interacting with a white female in the Jim Crow-era South.[3] Several nights after the incident in the store, Bryant's husband, Roy, and his half-brother J.W. Milam, who were armed, went to Till's great-uncle's house and abducted Emmett. They took him away and beat and mutilated him before shooting him in the head and sinking his body in the Tallahatchie River. Three days later, the boy’s mutilated and bloated body was discovered and retrieved from the river.
Till's body was returned to Chicago where his mother insisted on a public funeral service with an open casket, which was held at Roberts Temple Church of God in Christ. It was later said that "The open-coffin funeral held by Mamie Till Bradley exposed the world to more than her son Emmett Till's bloated, mutilated body. Her decision focused attention not only on U.S. racism and the barbarism of lynching but also on the limitations and vulnerabilities of American democracy". Tens of thousands attended his funeral or viewed his open casket, and images of his mutilated body were published in black-oriented magazines and newspapers, rallying popular black support and white sympathy across the U.S. Intense scrutiny was brought to bear on the lack of black civil rights in Mississippi, with newspapers around the U.S. critical of the state. Although local newspapers and law enforcement officials initially decried the violence against Till and called for justice, they responded to national criticism by defending Mississippians, temporarily giving support to the killers.
In September 1955, an all-white jury found Bryant and Milam not guilty of Till's murder. Protected against double jeopardy, the two men publicly admitted in a 1956 interview with Look magazine that they had tortured and murdered the boy, selling the story of how they did it for $4000. Till's murder was seen as a catalyst for the next phase of the civil rights movement. In December 1955, the Montgomery bus boycott began in Alabama and lasted more than a year, resulting eventually in a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that segregated buses were unconstitutional. According to historians, events surrounding Emmett Till's life and death continue to resonate. An Emmett Till Memorial Commission was established in the early 21st century. The Sumner County Courthouse was restored and includes the Emmett Till Interpretive Center. Fifty-one sites in the Mississippi Delta are memorialized as associated with Till. The Emmett Till Antilynching Act, an American law which makes lynching a federal hate crime, was signed into law on March 29, 2022 by President Joe Biden.
* The Blog Meister selects the topics for the Lead Picture and the Short Essay and then leans heavily or exclusively on Wikipedia to provide the content. The Blog Meister usually edits the entries.
**Pictures with Captions from our community are photos sent in by our blog followers. Feel free to send in yours to domcapossela@hotmail.com
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
__________________________________________________________
It’s Sunday, April 24, 2022
Welcome to the 1,421st consecutive post to the blog
existentialautotrip.com
______________________________________
Lead Picture*
Douglas Edwards
Photo of the CBS Television network news with Douglas Edwards in 1952.
CBS Television - eBay front back
Permission details
Pre-1978, no mark
______________________________________
Commentary
Quack, quack.
Disney in Florida is losing some perks that they have hitherto enjoyed.
The Governor does not respect Donald and Friends.
Can the Republicans win a war with Disney?
As hostilities in Florida escalate, the parties involved move closer to mutually assured destruction: Disney closing up shop and leaving the state. A stunner.
______________________________________
Reading and Writing
I am working on my Submission materials, getting tons of excellent feedback.
______________________________________
Chuckles and Thoughts
I would imagine that if you could understand Morse code,
a tap dancer would drive you crazy.
~Mitch Hedberg
_____________________________________
Wellness
I slept only 1.5 hours last night and rested an hour and a half during the day.
I did excellent work, productive, although I had to cancel my scheduled lifting.
Too tired.
_____________________________________
Social Life
My social calendar for the next week includes several in-person visits. Friday and Sunday, a two-day visit with Kat and her boyfriend Will. Then on Tuesday, my niece and her husband David, On Thursday my friend Tucker will visit and help me with technology issues.
And I’ll be seeing coffee mates every day I visit my cafes.
I’ll receive a lot of emails.
Certainly enough.
_____________________________________
Mail and other Conversation
We love getting mail, email, or texts.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
or text to 617.852.7192
I thanked Jim P for his help with my Agent Submissions and he responded:
Dom,
My pleasure always. I can’t wait till your letters go out…and then for the movie to come out after the book!!
Jim
Blog meister responds: I get by with a little help from my friends.
___________________________________
Dinner/Food/Recipes
Using Oatmilk instead of milk or cream I made an individual Cornish Hen Pot Pie that was delicious. For pastry I used a waffle I bought at Wh Foods.
Looking forward to next time it make it.
I’ll publish the recipe here tomorrow.
____________________________________
Community Photos**
State House early in the morning
Nice yellows.
__________________________________
Short Essay*
Douglas Edwards (July 14, 1917 – October 13, 1990) was an American radio and television newscaster and correspondent who worked for the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) for more than four decades.
After six years on CBS Radio in the 1940s, Edwards was among the first major broadcast journalists to move into the rapidly expanding medium of television. He is also generally recognized as the first presenter or "anchor" of a nationally televised, regularly scheduled newscast by an American network.
Edwards presented news on CBS television every weeknight for 15 years, from March 20, 1947 until April 16, 1962. Initially aired as a 15-minute program under the title CBS Television News, the broadcast evolved into the CBS Evening News and in 1963 expanded to a 30-minute format under Walter Cronkite, who succeeded Edwards as anchor of the newscast.
Although Edwards left the evening news in 1962, he continued to work for CBS for another quarter of a century, presenting news reports on both radio and daytime television, and editing news features, until his retirement from the network in 1988.
Anchor for televised CBS newscasts, 1947-1962
Edwards on "Douglas Edwards With the News". This was the first CBS Evening News television program, beginning in 1950.
Edwards returned to the United States from his overseas radio assignments in May 1946.[6] By 1947, as CBS's top correspondents and commentators continued to shun the fledgling medium of television, Edwards was chosen by network executives to work with director Don Hewitt in presenting a televised news program every weeknight and to host CBS's televised coverage of the 1948 Democratic and Republican national conventions. While Edwards served as "anchor" of the programs, that term was actually not used within the context of newscasting, at least not consistently, until 1952, when CBS News chief Sig Mickelson reportedly applied it in describing Walter Cronkite's role in the network's political convention coverage. Such news terminology developed quickly in those early days of broadcasting daily news on television, a time fraught with uncertainties not only about the technologies required to present reports in a visual medium, but also about the most effective means of delivering those reports to viewers. Edwards' friends and CBS colleagues in the late 1940s were quick to suggest ways he could make his reports more interesting to his audience. "I remember", he stated years later, "guys coming up with brainstorms like wanting me to wear a football helmet to report the football scores."
In viewership ratings, Edwards' newscasts were soon eclipsed by NBC News with its Camel News Caravan presented by John Cameron Swayze. CBS, though, quickly regained its lead due in no small part to Edwards' ongoing efforts to cover major events personally. Among the many news stories that Edwards covered in those years in the dual role of newscaster-reporter were his trip to the North Pole in 1949, the attempted assassination of Harry S. Truman in November 1950, and the coronation of Elizabeth II in June 1953. He also reported on cultural events such as the Miss America Pageant (five times). The nightly 15-minute Douglas Edwards with the News was watched by nearly 30 million viewers by the mid-1950s, as the newscaster continued his practice of periodically covering major new stories himself. In July 1956, while stationed on a helicopter hovering over the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Massachusetts, Edwards reported the sinking of the SS Andrea Doria, on-site coverage that received widespread public attention and critical praise. Despite such efforts and positive reactions to his stories, viewership of Edwards' televised newscasts began to decline by the late 1950s as NBC's new Huntley-Brinkley Report—CBS News' chief competitor—began to attract increasingly larger audiences.
Edwards' last televised evening newscast aired on April 13, 1962. The following Monday, on April 16, Walter Cronkite officially replaced him as anchor of the telecast. The next year, on September 2, 1963, the program was retitled CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite. It was also rescheduled to broadcast at 6:30 p.m. instead of its normal 7:30 time slot, and its 15-minute format was expanded to 30 minutes, a change that made it the first half-hour weeknight news show on American television.
*The Blog Meister selects the topics for the Lead Picture and the Short Essay and then leans heavily or exclusively on Wikipedia to provide the content. The Blog Meister usually edits the entries.
**Community Pictures with Captions are sent in by our followers. Feel free to send in yours to domcapossela@hotmail.com
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!