Category Archives: Viva!

Bangor Opera House in Bangor, Maine

Bangor Opera House.

From the 1860s through the turn of the century, the town of Bangor was nicknamed the “little Broadway of the North.” At the time there were between seven and nine opera houses in the city, all of which sat upwards of 2,000 people. Today, only one remains.

The Bangor Opera House, now home to the year-round Penobscot Theatre Company, is the last remaining opera house in this former theatrical hub in northern Maine. First built in 1889, the opera house has lived many lives since then, but stands today as the jewel in the crown of Bangor once again.

Not long after it was built, the 19th-century opera house was destroyed in a fire. It was rebuilt in 1920 as an Egyptian-art deco vaudeville house that hosted celebrities like Oscar Wilde and Mae West.

Then in 1953, the building was turned into a cinema house and the entire 30-foot-tall proscenium arch became a giant movie screen. It operated as a movie theatre until the 1980s (the last movie shown here was Ghostbusters 2) and was transformed yet again, this time into a Pentecostal church. When the Penobscot Theatre Company finally purchased the building, it was in terrible disrepair. The theatre company has inhabited the building since 1999 and has done a remarkable job in restoring it to its former glory.

Nowadays the theater company offers behind-the-scenes tours of the Bangor Opera House. They take visitors backstage to learn little-known facts about the history of the theater, which is built into a cliff with the first two rows of seats underground, is equipped with hidden passages, and still uses the original floor, grid, and rope mechanisms. Perhaps unsurprisingly given its turbulent history, the opera house is also well-known as a haunted locale. It reportedly has three ghosts in residence and has been featured on ghost-hunting television shows.

Andrew McCabe: Trump said ‘I don’t care, I believe Putin’… about “the intelligence agencies saying North Korea had long range missiles”

There you have it, people! Trump meant every word in Helsinki when he sided with Putin over American Intelligence Agencies. This is f*cking frightening. And our Congress sits in got damn silence.  How much more do they need to impeach this treasonous sob?!

Former acting FBI director Andrew McCabe says he was fired from the bureau because he dared to go against President Trump—whom he portrayed as delusional and almost “gleeful” about firing former FBI director James Comey in an interview with 60 Minutes on Sunday night.

During the interview with CBS, part of his promotion of his new book, The Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump, McCabe doubled down on his assertions that Trump’s decision to fire Comey in May 2017 sparked so much alarm within the agency that it spurred talk of invoking the 25th Amendment.

But in addition to firing Comey and publicly disparaging the investigation into Russia’s election interference, McCabe said, Trump had made “astounding” remarks about Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“Essentially, the president said he did not believe that the North Koreans had the capability to hit us here with ballistic missiles in the United States,” McCabe told correspondent Scott Pelley. “And he did not believe that because President Putin had told him they did not. President Putin had told him that the North Koreans don’t actually have those missiles.” When he was told that U.S. intelligence thought otherwise, McCabe claimed that Trump responded, “I don’t care. I believe Putin.”

Trump also sided with Putin over the U.S. intelligence community on the Kremlin’s election interference, stating publicly last summer in a joint press conference alongside the Russian leader in Helsinki that he did not “see any reason why” Russia would be to blame for election meddling, especially since Putin was “extremely strong and powerful in his denial.” That meeting has come under renewed scrutiny recently after several officials were reportedly unable to get a readout of what went on during Trump’s closed-door meeting with Putin.

A digital gangster destroying democracy: the damning verdict on Facebook

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Parliament’s report into fake news raises many questions, but will the government act?

Facebook is an out-of-control train wreck that is destroying democracy and must be brought under control. The final report of parliament’s inquiry into fake news and disinformation does not use this language, precisely, but it is, nonetheless, the report’s central message. And the language it does use is no less damning.

Facebook behaves like a “digital gangster”. It considers itself to be “ahead of and beyond the law”. It “misled” parliament. It gave statements that were “not true”. Its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, has treated British lawmakers with “contempt”. It has pursued a “deliberate” strategy to deceive parliament.

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Study blames YouTube for rise in number of Flat Earthers

Clowns and Russians use YouTube like they use Facebook and Twitter!

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Conspiracy theories shown on video-sharing site persuade people to doubt Earth is round

Researchers believe they have identified the prime driver for a startling rise in the number of people who think the Earth is flat: Google’s video-sharing site, YouTube.

Their suspicion was raised when they attended the world’s largest gatherings of Flat Earthers at the movement’s annual conference in Rayleigh, North Carolina, in 2017, and then in Denver, Colorado, last year.

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Desperate teens of anti-vaxxers are turning to Reddit for vaccination advice

Hyper sensitive people duped by those who enjoy spreading misinformation. Desperate teens of anti-vaxxers are turning to Reddit for vaccination advice:

dailydot:

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As a kid, Ethan wasn’t allowed to be vaccinated. Ethan’s parents are one of the up to 10 percent of Americans who are against some form of vaccination, often believing that preventing disease in children is a government conspiracy.

But Ethan is not his parents. When he turned 18, he decided to take matters into his own hands. He wasn’t sure where else to begin, so he turned to Reddit.

“Where do I go to get vaccinated? Can I get vaccinated at my age?” Ethan asked his fellow redditors in December.

Ethan’s post flooded with over 1,000 comments from users offering their encouragement and support, along with practical advice.


Anti-vaxxers have also mastered the art of social media, where they effectively disseminate misinformation via platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. Ethan said his mom is part of many online social groups, with many of them relating to “mothers against vaccines,” and he often sees her posting about how vaccines are a government conspiracy and harmful on Facebook.  

“My mom would publish and share videos, articles, and stuff like that about vaccines being bad,” Ethan said. “It’s almost as if she had been radicalized, or indoctrinated at some point. She holds that stuff as gospel.”

Ana Lucía Schmidt, a co-researcher of the seven-and-a-half-year study “Polarization of the Vaccination Debate on Facebook,” told the Daily Dot that the anti-vaxxing community’s social media usage is a classic example of confirmation bias.

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UK’s richest man moves to Monaco to ‘save £4bn in tax’

rich traitors!

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Brexiter Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s company Ineos is reportedly working with PricewaterhouseCoopers to reduce bill

Britain’s richest man, the Brexit supporter Sir Jim Ratcliffe, and two of his key lieutenants at chemicals firm Ineos have reportedly been planning to save up to £4bn in tax after moving to Monaco.

The company, which is valued at about £35bn, is working with tax experts at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) to create a new structure for the business to dramatically reduce the tax paid on its global revenues, according to the Sunday Times.

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Protests erupt in Brazil after death of black teenager who was restrained

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Campaigners say Black Lives Matter movement is emerging after action in five major cities

Brazilian activists have taken to the streets in five major cities after the death of a young black man who was restrained by a supermarket security guard.

Campaigners said the protests are feeding a nascent Black Lives Matter movement in Brazil, where nearly three-quarters of all homicide victims are black.

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