I Don’t Want It Good. I Want It Tuesday

That’s a Jack Warner quote in the header. One of the Warner Brothers. No-nonsense guy. Bit of a bastard. More or less cheated his brothers out of their share of the movie studio, and ran it himself. It’s easy to forget guys like Jack Warner. Everyone remembers the movies that got made by his studio. He hired lots of big stars that everyone remembers. But it’s guys like him that have always run Hollywood. Money rules that town, and the output is secondary.

I wonder what Jack Warner would say about the rise of the film directors who came after his reign, and who demanded full control over their productions, and a blank check for a budget. On second thought, no I don’t.  I don’t want it good. I want it Tuesday about covers it.

So let’s take a page from Jack Warner’s handbook. We’ll clean out our browser bookmarks, and it won’t be good, but it will be Tuesday.

Face of a Saint: Thomas Aquinas’ Appearance Revealed After 750 Years

On the heels of the skull of St. Thomas Aquinas touring the nation, a new study released this week gives Catholics a glimpse at what the “Angelic Doctor” may have looked like. The image of the doctor of the Church who contributed a wealth of wisdom in the areas of theology and philosophy was reconstructed using the saint’s skull.

I’ll wager that Thomas Aquinas’ empty skull still has more wisdom in it than Richard Dawkins noggin ever had.

Rwandan scientists develop local yeast for banana wine-makers

For years, Augusti Ntivuguruzwa struggled to perfect his banana wine in Rwanda. As for many traditional wine-makers in the country, each batch brought uncertainty about whether regulators would approve his product. “Before now, we did not have any yeast specifically made for banana wine and it has been difficult for regulators to approve of the banana wine we produce,” says Ntivuguruzwa.

I feel like I’m reading a Norm Crosby bit. For years, Augusti Notagonnaworkhereanymore straggled to project his bilingual whine in a fish called Wanda.

The Mafias Behind Sand Trafficking in Latin America

Some Mexican sand mafias may export their product to the United States, though the issue has not received as much attention from authorities as the smuggling of drugs and people across the border. Beiser said legal sand mining has gotten public pushback due to its effects on water quality, which could be pushing construction companies in the border region to use illegal sand.

Interestingly, “Mexican Sand Mafias” is the name of my Santana tribute band. But I digress.

How an Upstate Town Took Back Its Power

Massena Electric’s standard rate for residential customers is around four cents per kilowatt hour, all charges included. That makes it some of the cheapest electricity in the country — largely thanks to NYPA’s preferential rates for municipal utilities. National Grid customers pay closer to 15 cents per kilowatt hour, on average.

I recently lived less than one mile from a hydroelectric dam, a dozen windmills, and a plant producing electricity using black liquor. But somehow I was paying seventeen cents a kilowatt hour. There’s a lot to be said for municipal services.

reCAPTCHA: 819 million hours of wasted human time and billions of dollars in Google profits

By 2025, reCAPTCHA is easily defeated by bots. Yet Google continues to offer it because reCAPTCHA has evolved into a tracking tool that collects user data and generates billions in revenue for Google, according to Chuppl. “Re-captcha takes a pixel by pixel fingerprint of your browser, a realtime map of everything you do on the internet.”

Next you’ll be telling me that they don’t really care how many motorcycles are in the pictures.

When Louis Armstrong Conquered Chicago

As they rode the cab to Philo Atkins’s apartment building, Oliver told Armstrong his room would have a private bath.

“What’s a private bath?” Armstrong asked.

“Listen, you little slew-foot sommitch, don’t be so damn dumb,” Oliver said with a “funny” look.

“But he had forgot, that he must have wondered the same thing when he first came up north,” Armstrong reflected. “Because in New Orleans the neighborhood we lived, we never heard of such a thing as a bath tub Period…Letlone a private bath….Savy?”

One of the most genial performers, ever.

There Hasn’t Been Much if Any Reduction in WFH in over Two Years, Despite the Hype about RTO

The average occupancy in the top 10 office markets in the latest week was still only at 54% of where it had been before Covid, so still down by 46% from pre-Covid, and only a few percentage points higher of where it had been at the same time in 2023, and just a hair higher than at the same time in 2024.

How you going to keep them down on the cubicle farm, now that they’ve been pants-free?

Make McKinley Great Again

“Is it not better, therefore, I submit that the income of the government shall be secured by putting a tax or a duty upon foreign products, and at the same time carefully providing that such duties shall be on products of foreign growth and manufacture which compete with like products of home growth and manufactures, so that, while we are raising all the revenues needed by the government, we shall do it with a discriminating regard for our own people, their products and their employments?”

Be careful. Talk like that could get a guy shot.

Using lab-grown human mini-brains, scientists find links between head trauma, herpes, and Alzheimer’s

Decades of epidemiological data have shown that infections with herpes simplex virus type 1, or HSV-1 can raise the risk of Alzheimer’s disease in certain people. So can a history of head injury. The new research, published Tuesday in Science Signaling, is the first to connect the dots between them, and adds to mounting evidence that this most common form of dementia can be caused by an everyday microbe.

I’m still trying to process the phrase “lab-grown human mini-brains.” Other than that, it sounds like they’re suggesting you should wear a hockey helmet when you visit a brothel.

Regularly eating eggs supports a lower risk of cardiovascular disease-related death

Published in the Journal Nutrients, the researchers found that for relatively healthy older adults, consuming eggs 1-6 times per week was associated with a lower risk of all-cause mortality (death from any cause) and CVD mortality compared to those who rarely or never eat eggs.

I’ve seen what eggs cost this week. So choose wisely between heart attacks and bankruptcy.

Have a good day, confreres!