Sept rambling – Bust Unions

Whispers from the Great Beyond, featuring Rebecca Jade

Amazon Is Deploying AI to Spy on Its Workers and Bust Unions Before They Form

The Secret Service: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

The Nobel Peace Prize announcement is that this year’s award went to Navi Pillay, a person of “exceptional courage” who has led accountability efforts against apartheid, prosecuted war crimes, and upheld international law for decades.  The Norwegian Nobel Committee honored Pillay, who early in her career served as a judge on South Africa’s High Court, her native country.

Being Heard Is Not Enough. As the Cornell 7 case reminds us, institutional accountability is a must

A Photo of Mussolini’s Corpse Led Page 1. How It Got There Is a Tale.

When Your Charity Dollars Go Overseas, Can You Follow the Money?

Where to Take Your Unwanted Prescription Meds – The National Association of Boards of Pharmacy (NABP) has an online tool that lets you find the closest kiosk by entering your ZIP code.

Eva Marie Saint, from the movie North by Northwest, and an Oscar winner for On the Waterfront, is dead at 102

Mike Ditka has died. He and the Bears won the Super Bowl in 1986, and after coaching, he became one of the sport’s most visible and enduring talking heads. He was 86.

70 Up and saying goodbye to the greatest documentary series of all time

Toadstools and Toxins, what’s in those “magic mushroom” gummies?

UGH

The U.S. Supreme Court granted the regime’s request to resume third-country deportations, issuing an unsigned stay of a lower-court injunction. The Court added the case to its docket and scheduled oral arguments for December.

FOTUS wrote that the White House sees anyone who says “artificial intelligence” instead of “super intelligence” as “THE ENEMY”.

FOTUS’s decision to hold an international summit at his private golf club, an idea he rejected in his first term, shows how much he has shattered norms.

He personally told an aide to use taxpayer money for TV ads praising him

The regime’s allies have sought to prove a “grand conspiracy” through a sprawling Justice Department inquiry. It has buckled under staffing shake-ups, internal disputes, and trouble finding evidence.

A scorecard from MAHA activists suggests the regime has broken most of its promises to the movement on food, agriculture, and environmental health.

GOP senator’s gotcha question blows up in his face

MUSIC

This Land Is Your Land/Power to the People – Tom Morello leads an all-star finale featuring Bruce Springsteen, Joan Baez, Dave Grohl, Dave Matthews, Stephen Stills, and more, performing live at the Power to the People Festival 2026! The whole 10-hour concert✊

My Minnesota Home – Gail Sparlin. I heard her sing this at the Reader’s Theater event in Albany, NY, on October 5, benefiting the Wizard’s Wardrobe tutorial program.

Peter Sprague Plays Whispers from the Great Beyond, featuring Rebecca Jade

Autumnal Sketch by Sergei Prokofiev

The main theme from the score to Dangerous Beauty by George Fenton

Kansas City – The New Basement Tapes

Dolly Suite by Gabriel Fauré

Teardrops – Womack & Womack

On the radio, I heard Leyenda by Albeniz. IDK who was playing, but here’s Andres Segovia. It reminded me of Spanish Caravan – The Doors

Coverville 1596: Album Anniversaries for XTC, ELO and Simon & Garfunkel

The Fall of the Leaf by Gerald Finzi

Surreptitious – Romy

Operator (That’s Not the Way It Feels) – Jim Croce 

Peter Sprague Plays The Kiss featuring Allison Adams Tucker

Favorite Songs By Favorite Artists (Series Four) #11: Elton John

NYT: My Favorite Phone Songs

Remembering when there were ‘Stax’ of soul musicians in Memphis

What Makes This 50’s Fender Precision Bass So Rare! The insane story of how Joe Bonamassa helped solve Rick Beato’s 50-year-old family mystery.

#10 CDTA bus into Stuyvesant Plaza

four times a day

I wrote here in August 2025 that the CDTA #10 bus would not be going into Stuyvesant Plaza, but would instead stop on Western Avenue. The news irritated me greatly. That was the word in the newspaper and on the CDTA website at the time.

On a recent walk through the plaza, I saw the sign above. Ah, they must not have removed it. So I called CDTA, and the person on the line informed me that the bus DOES go into Stuyvesant four times a day. What?

Later in the day, I needed to go to a medical appointment in Executive Park, which is behind Stuyvesant Plaza. When I was done, I noticed a couple of  bus kiosks with this information:

Wow. Am I misremembering this? This Reddit thread and the story from WTEN-TV confirms what I had written about. So at some point since then, CDTA or Stuyvesant Plaza – I was unclear who was the villain in the piece – apparently changed their mind and the schedule.

So, four times a day, a change has come. Coming from Albany to Crossgates Mall, the bus will turn right from Western Avenue onto Fuller Road to the stops at 2 and 6 Executive Park to the Stuyvesant Plaza post office back to Western Avenue.   Coming from Crossgates, the bus will turn left onto Fuller, to Executive Park, the post office, to that sign I photographed, right on Fuller, and left onto Western.

This makes me happy. There are a number of medical offices in the various Executive Park buildings. Buses into Stuyvesant Plaza will encourage shopping in the various stores and restaurants. 

Check the schedule.

Opposing the death penalty

“a barbaric promotion of a culture of death”

Hank Green mused about the botched execution in Tennessee: Why Are We So Bad at Executing People? He has a statistical analysis that might well explain it. Christa Pike’s attorneys had made it known that she had essential thrombocytosis, which complicates IV access. A doctor explains: “What happened in Tennessee’s execution chamber is one of the most common failures in medicine.”

Kelly mentioned his conversion to opposing the death penalty. I’ve opposed it for longer, but I like his point: “Time and time again I have seen that, as a response to the actions of the worst of us, executions do not bring out the best of us.”

Over 200 people have been exonerated after being on death row, some of them incarcerated for decades.

From the ACLU:

  • Almost all people on death row could not afford to hire an attorney. The quality of legal representation better predicts whether someone will be sentenced to death than the facts of the crime.
  • Race often plays a role in determining a capital sentence, in multiple ways. Over 80% of capital cases involve white victims, even though nationally, only 50% of murder victims are white…. 
Death is a carnival

But what frankly enraged me recently was Pete Hegseth announcing that the Pentagon plans a public livestream execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan, its first in decades. The president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Archbishop Paul S. Coakley, has rightly condemned the plan as “a barbaric promotion of a culture of death” that would “only further undermine the moral fabric of our nation.”

Public execution as entertainment? AP: “For about nine decades, executions in the U.S. have been private affairs.” After years of public executions, “states started to change the policy as an increasing number of people witnessed botched hangings and as broader concerns grew over the events… Instead of promoting the sanctity of life and how solemn the circumstance was, with people applauding and having a carnival-like atmosphere, that really turned people off.” 

I will admit that the “festivities” image created a visceral reaction in me. It reminded me of lynchings, “the public killing of an individual who has not received any due process. These executions were often carried out by lawless mobs, though police officers did participate, under the pretext of justice.

“A typical lynching involved a criminal accusation, an arrest, and the assembly of a mob, followed by seizure, physical torment, and murder of the victim. Lynchings were often public spectacles attended by the white community in celebration of white supremacy. Photos of lynchings were often sold as souvenir postcards.”

Don’t be like Iran

I’m not arguing that Hasan was not fairly convicted, as far as I know, or that the government doesn’t have the AUTHORITY to execute him. But the OHCHR’s Shabia Mantoo, responding to a question from journalists at a press briefing in Geneva, noted that the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, in response to public executions in Afghanistan and Iran, had previously stressed that such executions “constitute a form of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”

We are presumably better than Yemen and North Korea, other countries that have performed public executions in recent years. Or maybe not. Watch Jonathan Pie on American Morality.

Canadian Thanksgiving

its southern neighbor has been treating Canada poorly

Last week, my wife cheekily asked me whether I celebrate Columbus Day or Indigenous People’s Day. I told her I honor Canadian Thanksgiving.

From History.com: “Columbus Day, a U.S. holiday that commemorates the landing of Christopher Columbus in the Americas in 1492, was unofficially celebrated in a number of cities and states as early as the 18th century, but did not become a federal holiday until 1937. For many, the holiday is a way of both honoring Columbus’ achievements and celebrating Italian-American heritage.”

How did it grow? “The first Columbus Day celebration took place in 1792, when New York’s Columbian Order—better known as Tammany Hall—held an event to commemorate the historic landing’s 300th anniversary. Taking pride in Columbus’ birthplace and faith, Italian and Catholic communities in various parts of the country began organizing annual religious ceremonies and parades in his honor.”

I get this. Still, “throughout its history, Columbus Day and the man who inspired it have generated controversy, and many alternatives to the holiday have proposed since the 1970s, including Indigenous Peoples’ Day, now celebrated in many U.S. cities, states and territories.”

I always found the fact that Columbus never landed on the continental Americas to be curious. But this is cool: “In many Latin American nations, the anniversary of Columbus’ landing has traditionally been observed as the Dìa de la Raza (‘Day of the Race’), a celebration of Hispanic culture’s diverse roots. In 2002, Venezuela renamed the holiday Dìa de la Resistencia Indìgena (“Day of Indigenous Resistance”) to recognize native peoples and their experience.”

O Canada

Ultimately, I honed in on Canadian Thanksgiving because its southern neighbor, a long-time ally, has been treating Canada poorly. From Congress.gov, “Since 2025, U.S.-Canada trade tensions have increased following the imposition of U.S. tariffs on Canadian goods.” The blow-by-blow is well-described.

The Canadian government notes: “Canada and the United States (U.S.) are bound not only by geography and history, but also by extensive trade and investment flows, cross-border supply chains and energy infrastructure, and enduring people-to-people ties. Our two countries also share a deep and longstanding defence and national security partnership, providing both countries with greater security than could be achieved individually.

“Trade and investment between Canada and the U.S. support millions of jobs on both sides of the border and help ensure the secure and flow of goods and people across the border that is vital to both countries’ economic competitiveness and prosperity.”

As for the ill-advised tariffs, “according to U.S. Census Bureau data, in 2025, the United States imposed duties on about 15% of U.S. imports from Canada by value (about $56 billion total), with a total $10 billion in calculated duties (compared to $0.4 billion in 2024). Most Canadian goods entered duty-free, likely because goods were certified as USMCA-compliant…

“Canada and the U.S. share a land border that, at close to 9,000 km, is the longest international border in the world, and most Canadians – 2 out of 3 – live within 100 km of the border” Yet the current regime belittles its long-term ally with its “51st state” talk. Ask most US business close to the border, and they will tell you they aren’t seeing those Canadian licence plates nearly as often as they did in 2024. Little wonder that the Buffalo Bills had Barenaked Ladies perform O Canada at their home opener in their new stadium.

Like a good neighbour

I have not been to Canada nearly often enough.  The 2011 trip to Toronto and Peterborough, the latter for the Olin International Family Reunion, was probably the longest time there. Or it might have been my trips to Montreal in 1991 and 1992.

I have been to Niagara Falls at least a half dozen times, on both sides of the border. The only other time I can remember was in 1998 when a friend drove from Detroit, MI, to London, ON because the gas was cheaper.

I really need to get to the Maritime provinces, at least.

So, I’m sorry, Canada, that you’ve been so poorly treated by folks allegedly representing me. I loved the idea that Canadians added to the cultural mix that is the United States since I used to read the World Almanac list of famous celebrities and discovered than Lorne Greene (Bonanza TV show), Peter Jennings, Leonard Cohen,  Joni Mitchell, and Neil Young, among many others, were Canadian . Here’s a more contemporary list plus the Wikipedia roster.

Here’s hoping that things will be better between us in a year and a half. Oh, and thank you, Canada, for all of your wonderfulness.

Sunday Stealing Has No Theme Whatsoever

You say Stephen and I say Steven

Welcome to Sunday Stealing. Here we will steal all types of questions from every corner of the blogosphere. Our promise to you is that we will work hard to find the most interesting and intelligent questions. Cheers to all of us thieves!

This week’s highly random questions were stolen from Love Me Some Surveys. It Has No Theme Whatsoever

Survey Asks …

1. What was the last gift you received?

Father’s Day. Miniature Hess trucks. Interestingly, I didn’t actually RECEIVE it until early September.

2. Who did you last hang out with?

Probably friend Grace, who got a new reclining chair.

3. Do you often lose the remote?

We have two, one for the Roku and one for the DVR. One or the other is often MIA. 68% of the time, it’s on or in the sofa.

4. When did you last check Facebook?

When I posted my blog this morning. I usually note who commented.

5. Are there scented candles in the room you’re in?

No. I actually hate them. They feel like they deprive me of oxygen.

6. Next time you leave the house, where will you be going?

To choir rehearsal before church.

S.T.E…

7. Do you know anyone named Steven or Stephen or Steve or Stevie?

I know a lot of them. There’s the guy from high school who I last saw in Poughkeepsie in May 1971; we’re Facebook friends. Then there’s the awesome Stephen Bissette, a great comic book artist, my friend, and a fellow March Piscean.

At least three guys I know from 1980s Albany, all of whom I’m friends with on Facebook. One is an author who spoke at Albany Public Library. Another gave me tickets to see Maria Muldaur; he couldn’t go because he had tickets to ANOTHER show. Yet another was a local newspaper guy who appeared in one or more of the FantaCo Chronicles I edited; he’s moved to the Southwest. A couple others, including a guy from my previous church, are ones I’ve lost track of.

I also know at least four women named Stephanie, three of them from my church.

8. Which do you prefer: macaroni salad or potato salad?

I want to like potato salad, but I don’t. Macaroni salad can vary, depending on how it’s seasoned.

9. Do you have an ice maker in your refrigerator door?

No, it’s in the freezer section, the lower third of the fridge. One can stop it from producing too much ice, which is a good thing.

10. When you woke up this morning, did you get up straightaway or lounge a bit?

“Lounge” would be overstating it. It’s usually running my Sunday mental to-do list, which includes, in some order: go to my office laptop and post my blog post on Facebook and on Bluesky, if I remember the latter. Post my blog post on Sunday Stealing. Visit the Sunday Stealing posts for the week. Make oatmeal for breakfast. Look at my phone, hoping there are no actionable items. Then eat, shower, dress, go to church.   

Thank you for playing! Please come back next week.