Month: December 2024

“Make America sick again”

placebo testing

A December 9 article in MedWatch is titled How Measles, Whooping Cough, and Worse Could Roar Back on RFK Jr.’s Watch. The subtitle: Some experts fear he could “make America sick again.” Arthur Allen, KFF Health News, wrote it.

“Ater backlash against public health interventions culminated in President-elect Donald Trump’s nominating Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the country’s best-known anti-vaccine activist, as its top health official, infectious disease and public health experts and vaccine advocates say a confluence of factors could cause renewed, deadly epidemics of measles, whooping cough, and meningitis, or even polio…

“Even states that keep existing requirements will be vulnerable to decisions made by a Republican-controlled Congress as well as by Kennedy and former Republican Rep. Dave Weldon, MD, of Florida, should they be confirmed to lead HHS and the CDC, respectively.

“Both men — Kennedy as an activist, Weldon as a medical doctor and congressman from 1995 to 2009 — have endorsed debunked theories blaming vaccines for autism and other chronic diseases…  Both have accused the CDC of covering up evidence… despite dozens of reputable scientific studies to the contrary.”

Meanwhile, Vanity Fair’s December 13 article notes that RFK Jr.’s lawyer, who is helping staff HHS, has demanded the FDA’s revoke of the polio vaccine approval. The headline undersells the gravity of the issue.

Let’s bring back polio!

“That lawyer is Aaron Siri, whose polio petition was filed in 2022 and who does not discriminate when it comes to vaccines he’d like to take an axe to. According to the Times, Siri ‘has also filed a petition seeking to pause the distribution of 13 other vaccines…; sued federal agencies for the disclosure of records related to vaccine approvals; and subjected prominent vaccine scientists to grueling videotaped depositions.’… While Kennedy has claimed, not very convincingly, that he does not intend to take away access to vaccines, his persistent undermining of them and his relationship with Siri does not inspire much confidence.”  Vaccines for hepatitis A, hepatitis B, tetanus, and diphtheria could be on the chopping block. 

My friend Mary, who has a deep background in health issues, notes: “The basis for [Siri’s] request to revoke approval was the fact that when the polio vaccine was first being tested (about 70 years ago), they didn’t run randomized, double-blind studies against a placebo. The reason they didn’t was that, given the known risks of polio-causing paralysis that can seize major organs and kill people, such work is considered unethical.

“It was unethical to withhold the actual vaccine from some, substituting a theoretical risk from the vaccine for the actual risk of getting the disease. RFK and Siri want all polio vaccinations to stop until the placebo testing can happen, sacrificing a large cohort of children to the strong possibility that some of them will have extremely serious outcomes from not getting an actual vaccine that’s been in safe use for many decades.”
Although some of Kennedy’s comments about nutrition might make some sense, he is dangerous regarding vaccination. If his policies are implemented, they will gravely harm Americans for decades.

December rambling: male and female

mass clemency

Christmas 2021 Frankincense Cartoon

Text: H.R. 9218 — 118th Congress (2023-2024). This Act may be cited as the “Defining Male and Female Act of 2024”.

Why News Was So Neutral in the ’50s & ’60s

Ten Americas: a systematic analysis of life expectancy disparities in the USA

Legal Eagle is Suing the FBI & DOJ

Quackwatch: Your Guide to Quackery, Health Fraud, and Intelligent Decisions

Telling The Truth in a Post-Truth World, 5:30 p.m. Friday, November 22, 2024

The U.S. Census Bureau announced the appointment of five new members to its National Advisory Committee (NAC).

Bad influence: One Amazon influencer makes a living posting content from her beige home. But after she noticed another account hawking the same minimal aesthetic, a rivalry spiraled into a first-of-its-kind lawsuit. (This is an intellectual property dispute, which has always fascinated me.)
Certain names make ChatGPT grind to a halt.
It’s Time ‘Jeopardy!’ Restores the Five-Game Win Limit (I never supported the end of the five-game limit)
Prof. Leonard Slade: “Her poetry will stand the test of time.” A former University at Albany professor remembers the late Nikki Giovanni, his longtime friend and fellow poet.

Marshall Brickman, Oscar-winning screenwriter on ‘Annie Hall,’ Dies at 85

‘Sesame Street’ Hits the Market: HBO and Max Opt Not to Renew Deal For New Episodes

You Can Barely Appear On Screen and Still Win an Oscar

Bilbo Baggins, cheapest little Hobbit of them all…

Poetry Corner: Love Excels

Uncovering the names of alcoholic beverages

Now I Know: Another Brick in the Nose and The Famous Symbol with the Hidden N and D and The Temperature You Can Hear? and Let Slip the Dogs of … Reforestation? and The Man Who Raised His Hand… Forever

More pardons!

Biden Faces Pressure to Enact Mass Clemency; the 1500 he pardoned is a start. Advocates say Biden must repair the harm caused by harsh anti-drug and crime laws he championed in the 1980s and ’90s. I agree.

Additionally, there are 40 federal prisoners on death row. Not incidentally,  13 federal prisoners were executed between mid-July 2020 and mid-January 2021, when you-know-who was President.

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) calls on Biden to pardon djt, saying things would be “a lot more balanced.” I’m not feeling it. I feel that he’s already been pardoned, first by the Supreme Court and then by his election, which essentially scuttled most of the prosecutions.   

MUSIC

All My Love – Coldplay, feat. Dick Van Dyke

Who’s Sorry Now – the Rhythmakers

Favorite Songs By Favorite Artists: The Stranglers and Dead Kennedys

Coverville 1513: The 21st Annual Beatles Thanksgiving Cover Story

Edelweiss – MonaLisa Twins
Peg – Steely Dan
Eye Know – De La Soul ft. Otis Redding
Cannonball – The Breeders
Gigantic – The Pixies
Do The Work from Prince of Broadway
Automatic – The Pointer Sisters
What A Fool Believes – The Doobie Brothers
J. Eric Smith’s Best Albums of 2024

Best-Selling Children’s Records (Xmas)

Joel Whitburn Presents Christmas in the Charts, 1920 to 2004 shares this information: “Billboard published a best-selling children’s records chart from June 12th, 1948 through November 12th, 1955. This chart was researched for children’s Christmas records that charted during the holiday season.”

There were a lot of repeated songs, which might have led to the chart’s demise.

Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer – Gene Autry (1949), #1. After my father-in-law Richard died in 2020, I went through many of his CDs, a collection I had previously been unaware of. I got a non-holiday Gene Autry.

I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus – Jimmy Boyd (1952), #1

Frosty the Snow Man – Gene Autry (1950), #2. With the Cass County Boys and an orchestra conducted by Carl Cotner. This was available as a 78, then a 45.  

I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus – Spike Jones (1953), #4. The little-child vocal is by George Rock, “the heavy-set trumpeter in the Jones band.” 

Thirty-Two Feet, Eight Little Tails – Gene Autry (1951), #5

Susie Snowflake – Rosemary Clooney, #5. The orchestra was conducted by Tony Mottola.

Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer – Bing Crosby (1950) #6. With Jud Conlon’s Rhythmaires and John Scott Trotter & his Orchestra.

St. Nick

The Night Before Christmas – Milton Cross (1948), #6. The Clement Moore poem was originally released on a 1939 Victor recording. Musical background was performed by the Victor Salon Orchestra and was arranged and conducted by Rosario Bourdon. 

Frosty the Snow Man – Red Foley (1951), #6. With Shirley, Julie, and Jenny Foley, “The Little Foleys.” Producer: Paul Cohen

A Visit From Saint Nicholas (‘Twas the Night Before Christmas) – Fred Waring (1952), #6. This was originally released in 1942.  Waring and his Pennsylvanians, vocal by the Glee Club, Swingarettes, Jack Best, Gordon Goodman and Twin Trios Here’s the familiar Ken Darby arrangement. Waring would re-do it in later years, once more for Decca and then for Capitol. When I was in the high school choir, we performed a lot of Fred Waring song arrangements. 

47th Kennedy Center Honors

Francis Ford Coppola; Grateful Dead; Bonnie Raitt; Arturo Sandoval; Apollo Theater

Francis Ford Coppola

One of the more random items I have ever blogged about is a song called Mill Valley. It led to a video by an “obscure young director named Francis Ford Coppola, who, two years later, would direct the film that would win the Oscar for Best Movie, The Godfather.”

In 2008, I did a quiz for The Director Who Films Your Life Test, and it turned out to be Coppola. This is interesting in that I’ve only seen a handful of his films: the original Godfather in 1972 (I even remember with whom I saw it and where, in Syracuse, NY);  The Conversation (1974), which I saw on television in 2006; The Outsiders (1983); and Peggy Sue Got Married (1986).

This 2020 interview was quite enlightening.

Grateful Dead

I never saw the Grateful Dead perform, although I saw a Dead-adjacent concert in 1975, which included Bill Kreutzmann and Bobby Weir.

Grateful Dead albums I enjoy include American Beauty and  Working Man’s Dead. I should note that these albums are available in full on their YouTube channel; that’s no way to operate capitalism. Then there’s at least one I hate, which is on a list of the worst albums ever: Dylan and the Dead.

I’m also fond of Deadicated – A Tribute to the Grateful Dead from 1991. Mickey Hart put out Music To Be Born By, which I listen to occasionally. 

Note that the KCH only selects the members of a group who are still alive at the time of the selection, so no Jerry Garcia, Pigpen, et al.  Phil Lesh died in October, but he had been chosen before that.

I’ve mentioned the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee several times in this blog, most notably when she turned 70. My friend Mary sent me an article from the Washington Post, which is behind a paywall. I’ll give you just a flavor of it.

“In the late 1960s during her sophomore year, Bonnie Raitt took a leave from Radcliffe. Her intention was to hang with blues legends Mississippi Fred McDowell, Son House, Buddy Guy and Junior Wells, who were managed by her then-boyfriend Dick Waterman, inhaling the sort of storied education that wasn’t offered at Harvard… [She] has helmed a rock, folk and blues odyssey that is as improbable as it is lengthy, 21 albums and 54 years of touring punctuated by triumphs that erupted decades apart in an industry that tends to Vitamix its young.”

 

I continue to buy her albums. Wikipedia:  Just Like That… is the title track of her eighteenth studio album, Just Like That…, which was released on April 22, 2022, by Redwing Records. The song was written and produced by Raitt and lyrically details the story of a woman who is visited by the recipient of her son’s heart, which he received in a life-saving organ donation operation. The song won Best American Roots Song and Song of the Year at the 65th Annual Grammy Awards, with the latter award regarded as an upset over several higher-charting songs,” much to her obvious shock.

 

However, I never made the connection between John Raitt, the singer on many movie musicals, with whom I was somewhat familiar, and his daughter Bonnie until several years after she entered the music scene.
Arturo Sandoval

The theater was/is the mecca of music for nine decades, from Bessie Smith’s four-week run in the 1930s to Miles, Coltrane, and Monk in the 1950s, the legendary James Brown performance, and the Motortown review in the 1960s, Aretha in the 1970s, and much more.

Yet I had never been there. So when I got an invitation to see Lonnie Bunch there – I am a charter member of the National Museum of African American History and Culture – I was THERE.

The presentation was on Sunday, December 8, 2024. Celebrate the 47th Honors, hosted by Queen Latifah. CBS Broadcast: Sun. Dec. 22, 2024 at 8:30/7:30c.

Rebecca Jade and the Dave Koz Christmas Tour 2024

New Haven, CT

In case I haven’t mentioned her often enough in this blog, my first niece, Rebecca Jade, has made a career as a singer. In 2024, she performed with saxophonist Dave Koz on his Mediterranean tour. Then, she flew from Greece to Portugal for another gig, followed by a jazz festival in Indonesia. My family got to see her in Elmira in August. 

Once again, she’s on the Dave Koz and Friends Christmas tour. I attended a performance on Long Island back in 2021 without my wife and daughter, much to the chagrin of my child. So this time, we decided to trek down to New Haven, Connecticut, when we discovered Rebecca would be singing there, the closest she’d get to Albany, NY.

We stayed at a timeshare, which was more complicated to describe here, except that entertaining and parking were challenges. 

My daughter took the train from western Massachusetts, and my wife and I drove. We picked her up at the Union Station in New Haven. (There are lots of Union Station railroad locations in America.) After that, we got something to eat at a restaurant. 

The John Lyman Center for the Performing Arts at Southern Connecticut University was the venue. We parked in the spillover section.

Unlike the last time I saw her, when she didn’t appear until song five, she appears right off with Dave’s longtime cohort Jonathan Butler, saxophonist Vincent Ingala, and guitarist Adam Hawley.

Just Another Christmas Song

The musicians appeared on the stage in various combinations. Each of the other artists received their own time to shine. Rebecca, for instance, had a chance to sing the first song from her Christmas EP, Just Another Christmas Album. The song is Just Another Christmas Song (This Time I’ll Sing Along); you can hear it (or order it!) on Bandcamp, Apple Music, or Spotify. (Just dropped: a video of Merry Christmas, Darling.)

As was the case three years ago, a highlight of the evening was Rebecca Jade and Jonathan Butler singing Mary, Did You Know; here’s a 2021 performance in San Diego.  

The one downside is that the stage lights hit many of the audience members right in the eyes. They were small but powerful and irritating. Later, I discovered that the lights are usually positioned in a larger venue, where that would not likely happen.

After the show, some of us got to meet the artists backstage. Rebecca took us to the tour bus. They may seem exotic and fun, but it’s not all glamorous, given that ten people travel in this vehicle. It does get them from place to place; they went from New Haven to Cleveland, an eight-hour ride, to perform the next night before they had a couple of nights off. 

The next morning, after we left our temporary abode, a marathon took place on the streets north and south of us. So the restaurant that happened to be across the street, Icaru, a Peruvian place, had no customers. We ate there, and the food was very good. Then we drove to Union Station, dropped off the college student, and my wife and I went home.

Ramblin' with Roger
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