samhexum

Frank Bielec of TLC's "Trading Spaces" has died after a heart attack, according to a family member. Bielec was 72 and died at a Houston hospital on Friday, his stepson Matt Gafford said. The TLC Network issued a statement Saturday saying, it's "a sad day for the TLC family as we learn of the passing of beloved 'Trading Spaces' designer Frank Bielec." His colleague, designer Vern Yip, tweeted on Friday night saying, "Funny, wise, nice, and talented, he always lent perspective and levity to every situation." Home makeover host Ty Pennington tweeted about Bielec on Saturday, saying, "One of the best humans I've had the good fortune to call friend. You will be missed Frank." Friend and longtime "Trading Spaces" makeup artist Randall Tang said Bielec was "one of the kindest and most generous people I've ever worked with." He also had the "best one liners ever. I could never keep up." "I applaud his work ethic and sincerity with all he was to the cast and crew of 'Trading Spaces,' " Tang said. Genevieve Gorder, who worked as a designer with Bielec on the show, said: "Frank was the rock of our family, an authentic leader from the heart and the purest of joy. This loss is deep, but our allegiance to his spirit...is forever. TO OUR UNICORN, to our center....RID (rest in doing) he couldn't sit still."

Deaths from the coronavirus ticked higher in New York over the last 24 hours, but hospitalizations and new cases continued to decline, according to Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who warned Saturday about complacency amid data showing reason for optimism. An additional 157 people died of COVID-19 Friday, 105 in hospitals and 52 in nursing homes, a jump from the 132 recorded the day before, the governor said during his coronavirus briefing in Albany. The state’s death toll now stands at 22,478. “That number has been stubborn,” Cuomo said of the daily death toll. “We just need to make sure we don’t go back to the hell we’ve gone through.” Hospitalizations fell to 6,220 — a level last seen at the start of the pandemic, and a third of the peak number. New cases fell to 2,419, from 2,762 reported the day before, the governor said. Five regions in the state were allowed to reopen for business Friday, and Cuomo said he expects to see an increase in cases as more areas are phased in. “You’re in control of what happens. How you act will determine what happens,” he said. “If people are smart, then yes, you will see an increase in the numbers, but you won’t see a spike.” “Be smart, be diligent and don’t underestimate this virus,” he added. Nothing is certain with the coronavirus, said Cuomo, admitting his surprise when he learned that the majority of new cases were seen in people who left their homes to exercise, socialize or shop, rather than essential workers. “That was exactly wrong,” he said. “The infection rate among essential workers is lower than the general population and those new cases are coming predominantly from people who are not working and they are at home.” The state’s budget director, Robert Mujica, said officials expect to “learn a lot more” about how the virus travels from contact tracing over the next week. Also Saturday, Suffolk and Westchester, were added to the list of those approved to begin elective surgeries and ambulatory care services. “We want to make sure people who need medical services are getting medical services. There was a period when hospitals were dealing basically with COVID patients. We are past that period. If you need medical attention, if you need a medical procedure, you should get it,” Cuomo said. “Hospitals are safe places to go to. The extent people are worried about going to hospitals, there is no reason,” he said, while still urging vigilance — and common sense.

MLB’s thoughtful coronavirus plan shows how risky this all is By Joel Sherman The answers just might be in those 67 pages. Unfortunately, so are all the difficulties. MLB sent the union a “2020 Operations Manual” to cover the protocols designed to restart the game with health and safety. The 67 pages delivered Friday night are an exhaustive effort covering items as large as testing for COVID-19 and as small as the best practices for rosin bags and hitting donuts. There are multiple diagrams meant to provide social-distancing recommendations for items, from sitting in the dugout to organizing pitchers’ fielding practice in spring training. Even with all the detail, MLB considers this document a draft based on its medical advisors counsel that will be chiseled further with recommendations from teams and the union. It’s impressive. It’s also depressive. Because any reader of the document will be reminded of just how many needles will have to be threaded in how many places to not just restart the game, but keep it going for several months to resolution. Now add all the competing voices and agendas — not just in baseball, but government and medicine. Now add the money component. Now — most vitally — add a virus not bound by rules. For those pointing to the Korean Baseball Organization currently playing and MLB adopting many of the same health/safety practices, yes, it is great that there was a forerunner. But that is a 10-team league with travel exclusively by bus. South Korea’s governmental action and citizenry buy-in were decisive and aggressive. So that country doesn’t even have 300 deaths from COVID-19, yet nevertheless a small surge in cases in the last week chilled the league if a need for revisions or even a shutdown might be necessary. In the United States, deaths are near 90,000, the number dying every day continues to go up not down and states are all not reading from the same playbook. It is into that forum that MLB is going to try to get the union to sign off on new health/safety protocols and restart the season. I hope they pull it off. I love the game, and my livelihood is built around it. But every page of the document screams about the kind of cooperation, cohesion and competence that will be required to succeed. Adaptability will be at the forefront, especially for players, a breed raised on routine about to have pretty much all of their regimens disrupted or eliminated from hitting in indoor cages to spitting sunflower seeds to modified workout rooms to travel to … really, the 67 pages cover it all. Which is why so much of this is going to come down to just how badly do we want to play major league baseball in 2020? Because MLB and the union will do their best to create the finest health/safety practices currently known. But that will merely mitigate risk, not remove it. In a section titled “Conduct Outside of Club Facilities,” MLB states it will not restrict activities for the players and staff who will make up the inner sanctum of spring training and a season, but it warns about participating in non-baseball group activities, adding, “The careless actions of a single member of the team places the entire team [and their families] at risk.” Now think about how many single members there are. There will be 1,500 players in 30 spring training sites. You can about double that number for support staff. Family. Anyone they mix with outside of the facility. Now move to the regular season. Add bus drivers and pilots and anyone necessary to clean rooms in hotels. The concentric circles keep going. and MLB’s plan covers it all in minute detail, but there are words, there are practices, and there is what the virus is going to do. MLB’s plan discourages players/staff from leaving hotels on the road for anything but games, and to do otherwise necessitates permission from team personnel. Good luck with that oversight. Plus, it is probably easier for the average player to break a chewing tobacco habit than not go out after games day after day on the road. The discipline necessary will be dramatic. And a single person breaking the discipline chain “places the entire team [and their families] at risk.” In the best scenario, MLB is hoping to begin spring training in mid-June. That means getting an agreement with the Players Association no later than the next two weeks. Because to implement all the spring health/safety protocols and to get the players there will probably take another two weeks. And in the next two weeks MLB and the union importantly have to agree on how to pay the players, a contentious issue that is making groups that need to be cooperative, not that. But why argue about money until you know if you will play, and there is no play without agreeing on health and safety, and in the 67 pages that MLB sent, there are a lot of protocols on how to try to return the best way possible. It is thorough and thoughtful. It also is 67 pages that say as much between the lines as in the words. Even if they pull it off, it's going to look and feel weird. With no fans in the stands, how will they be able to mimic the sound of 50,000 people booing the Astros and banging on trash cans?

Beloved comic actor Fred Willard has died at age 86 of natural causes. The comedian was best known for roles in films “Best in Show” and “This is a Spinal Tap,” and TV’s “Modern Family. “My father passed away very peacefully last night at the fantastic age of 86 years old. He kept moving, working and making us happy until the very end. We loved him so very much!” his daughter Hope toldPeople. Earlier this year, Willard’s “Modern Family” character Frank Dunphy died on the show, of old age. Willard portrayed the character Fred Naird in the upcoming Netflix comedy “Space Force,” starring Steve Carell, which premieres on May 29th. Willard’s wife, Mary, died in 2018. Getting wedding gifts on ROSEANNE

Any time a person uses 'passes' or 'passed' referring to death, I'm reminded of this classic Golden Girls exchange: Truby Steele : Oh, my husband passed. Rose Nylund : Passed what? Dorothy Zbornak : A slow-moving Winnebago, Rose! And these exchanges also come to mind for this thread: Blanche: But he wants me. I can feel it. Dorothy: Let someone else feel it. Blanche: But we were meant for each other. I'm a woman, he's a man... Dorothy: And what am I, Little Richard? [blanche is talking about her beau Richard's son Little Richard during an outing to Bermuda] Rose: Little Richard was in Bermuda?! Dorothy: Yes, Rose. He was burying Fats Domino in the sand.

Worldwide bee population buzzing back thanks to lockdown Dwindling bee populations have threatened global food security and nutrition, but now they’re buzzing back thanks to the cleaner air caused by humans going into confinement. Wild bees have benefited from the planetary lockdown after years of sharply declining around the world. Conservationists say a world without bees would be a nightmare and efforts should be made to preserve them after the pandemic is over. “These creatures are vital to what we eat and what our countryside looks like,” Gill Perkins, chief executive of the Bumblebee Conservation Trust, told the BBC. “They provide a whole ecosystem service.” In the UK, bee specialists point to how officials have stopped maintaining highway shoulders, allowing bees to flourish in what are rapidly becoming lush habitats. Fewer cars on the road during the lockdown has meant less air pollution which makes it easier for bees to forage. Emptier highways have also spared many of the estimated 24 billion bees and wasps killed on North American roads every year. Bees are the world’s chief pollinators. They fertilize a third of the food we eat and 80% of flowering plants. Bees and other pollinating insects are worth about $150 billion to the world economy. To bee or not to bee, that is the question...

Store owner in California who banned masks says he’s being harassed over his views A Southern California flooring store owner who banned masks in his shop said this week he’s being threatened and harassed over his coronavirus views. “The government should not be doing what it’s doing,” Ramsay Devereux, who owns Ramsay One Construction in Ventura County, told the Los Angeles Times. “It’s absurd what’s going on,” he added. “No one has isolated a virus. No one has proved it. You can’t catch a virus. It’s not even possible. It’s the pharmaceutical industry trying to make a lot of money and make vaccines that are poisonous.” Four signs outside of his store read: “We’re OPEN – to the truth,” “No masks allowed,” “handshakes OK,” “Hugs very OK.” COVID-19 is a highly contagious disease that mainly spreads through respiratory droplets in the air. Wearing masks can help slow the spread of the virus to others, experts say, because it keeps droplets sent into the air through breathing, sneezing or coughing inside the mask. Devereaux is seemingly in violation of Ventura County’s current social distancing order for businesses, requiring establishments to “enforce COVID-19 prevention plans” and give written notice for how it will comply with social distancing requirements. He told The Times, “there was not one bit of criticism,” when he first put up the signs. People even came into the store for hugs, he said. “And then everything broke loose,” he added. Last weekend, TMZ posted a story on Devereaux’s signs and a separate tweet of a Facebook picture of Devereaux’s signs with the comment “Actual store in my town,” went viral. David Parsons, an American history professor who posted the tweet, told The Times, “Reading the thread of all these reactions, it’s clear that Americans are all living in their own media-saturated reality.” “All these rabbit hole investigations people have done. It’s scary to me because managing democracy is always messy, but it’s harder when you have a population that does not even accept the premise of what’s going on,” he added. Devereaux said he’s gotten angry emails and phone calls and Yelp even had to shut down reviews on his business’s page because of angry criticisms unrelated to flooring. One person called him a “COVID-19 denier!” according to The Times. Devereaux said one person threatened to burn down his store. “It’s shaken me up,” he admitted.

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sorry, no

STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN?

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Lingerie designer and heiress to KFC launches $1 million plan to employ LGBT+ people affected by coronavirus Kaila Methven, heiress to a fried chicken fortune and a lingerie designer to the stars, has reportedly pledged to help employ LGBT+ people and raise $1 million during the coronavirus pandemic. Methven’s company, PLUR, will hire LGBT+ people, as well as people in alcohol recovery and survivors of domestic abuse, to work as independent contractors. PLUR – Peace Love Unity Respect, a slogan that comes from the rave community – creates Methven’s “Madame Maven” lingerie, as well as the slyly named festival-clothing line ‘Special K’. “The Independent Contractor Program primarily assists the unemployed and disenfranchised members of the LGBTIQ+ community, the domestic violence survivor community of both men and women, and the sober living community community,” said Methven. The newly conceived programme for independent contractors will also seek to raise $1 million in emergency coronavirus funds for LGBT+ charities associated with the electronic dance community, Methven has pledged. Kaila Methven’s grandfather founded Rainbow Chicken Unlimited, the company that acquired KFC in the 1980s. The fund and programme were first reported in music-industry media in February. “Giving people opportunities to work for themselves in the fashion industry and learning the ‘ins and outs’ while they learn about clothing, lingerie, and art has developed and really improved every aspect of the PLUR Association,”Methven told the Star Observer yesterday. Asked about what inspired her to help the LGBT+ community during the pandemic, she said: “Art inspires me… love inspires me… so does sensuality and passion.” “I want my contribution to the world to be the soldier spreading the message and true meaning of PLUR,” Methven added. “I aim to use my voice as a philanthropist, it’s my dream to make a difference in the world. This is the beginning of days, we all unite globally as human beings.” She added that the PLUR Association seeks to foster recognition of the need for respect, diversity, inclusion, and equality for people of all gender identities and sexualities in the workplace. Now can she just do something about all those annoying commercials?

Hot Truckin' was a good video although none of their pickups were as hot as GG and Nick Rodgers. https://www.bijouworld.com/newsletter_temp/hot_truckin_truck_sex_images.jpg

Anything Madonna from her first two albums (couldn't stand her before the TRUE BLUE album) Anything Prince sang (especially This is what it smells like When Doves Fry) Almost any show tune the 1-877-kars4kids jingle!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ironically I don't turn that off because I love singing along and making fun of his pronunciation. I always imagine he recorded it on the toilet whilst dealing with severe constipation.

Restaurant slammed for ‘COVID-19 surcharge’ on meal The owners of a Missouri restaurant are pleading with people online to stop harassing their employees after a customer posted a photo of their receipt that showed she was charged a “Covid 19 surcharge” for a meal. The customer posted the photo of the receipt from Kiko Japanese Steakhouse and Sushi Lounge in West Plains on May 11, writing: “Scuse me … what? A covid surcharge…?” The tweet went viral, and Twitter users began hurling insults at the staff of the restaurant for the surcharge, the steakhouse wrote in a Facebook post. They wrote that the surcharge was applied because of an increase in the price of meat and poultry because of the coronavirus outbreak. “Please understand we are not doing this to take advantage of you guys!” the restaurant wrote in the Facebook post. “We are doing this hoping we can adjust the surcharge weekly rather than just raise all of our prices on our menu due to increase prices from our supplier on meat, poultry, seafood & produce,” they added. That actually seems sensible and sensitive to me. I get that it seems exploitative, but I don't think that was the intent. Meat prices in the US have shot up in recent weeks, increasing more than 8 percent in April. In response to the backlash, the restaurant said it would take the surcharge off and instead raise their prices across the board. However, it added that it would be offering a “good promo deal” so customers can “enjoy our meal with a low cost.” :confused: