May 14, 2025 - Ramblin' with Roger

We Cannot Remain Silent: A Statement on the National Moment from Albany Presbytery, PCUSA (May 1, 2025)

Who broke the internet?

Cardinal Robert Prevost Becomes First American Pope, Will Take the Name Leo XIV; he plays Wordle!

David H. Souter, Republican Justice Who Allied With Court’s Liberal Wing, Dies at 85. He left conservatives bitterly disappointed with his migration from right to left, leading to the cry of “no more Souters.” I saw him speak in 2013. “A demand for saving art, keeping music, teaching civics in the schools is not asking for favors. Rather, it is vital for the stability, even the very survival of the United States, which is hampered by a voting citizenry that is grossly unaware about how the government of the country is supposed to work.”

This month, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture is celebrating the 100th anniversary of its founding! It is a national landmark and world-renowned research center located in the heart of Harlem.

John Green – “Everything Is Tuberculosis” | The Daily Show

The Remote Work Paradox: Higher Engagement, Lower Wellbeing

Pulitzer Prize for a distinguished portfolio of editorial cartoons or other illustrated work (still, animated, or both) characterized by political insight, editorial effectiveness, or public service value: Ann Telnaes of The Washington Post: “For delivering piercing commentary on powerful people and institutions with deftness, creativity – and a fearlessness that led to her departure from the news organization after 17 years. The Cartoonist Who Crushed the Oligarchs: An Interview with Ann Telnaes.

What was food like before the FDA? Formaldehyde, brick dust, lead, and borax once made grocery shopping a minefield.

Measles Cases Top 1,000: A Crisis of Complacency— This situation is an avoidable public health failure

Baloney

How Will We Know When We Have Lost Our Democracy?

We Have To Deal with Presidential Power

“Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear. “-Harry S. Truman, 33rd US president (8 May 1884-1972)

FOTUS family crypto firm raises concerns over potential conflicts of interest. Crypto landscape is like a ‘Walking Dead, post-apocalyptic anarchy. Tell Congress: Ban Government Officials From Issuing Cryptocurrencies

The firing of the Librarian of Congress, Carla Hayden, is the latest move in the upheaval of U.S. cultural institutions.

MAGA news network OAN to take over venerable government-funded outlet, Voice of America

Bill Gates says Elon Musk is ‘killing the world’s poorest children’

The battle is here: GOP health care cuts and tax giveaways to the rich

What Happens to Hollywood When the U.S. Is No Longer the Good Guy? For decades, the studios have churned out movies that celebrated truth, justice, and the American way. Now, as FOTUS attacks allies, tears down democratic institutions, and cozies up to dictators, U.S. exceptionalism is a hard sell onscreen.

100% Tariff on Movies: 8 Key Questions the Industry Is Now Pondering and Dreading

PBS President Says Executive Order to End Funding Is “Blatantly Unlawful”

New Oklahoma Curriculum Requires Students To Learn 2020 Election Fraud Conspiracies

Sherman Tanks have no use for Elon Musk

Plus

Anne Frank: The Exhibition: Opened on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, January 27, 2025, to mark the 80th commemoration of the liberation of Auschwitz. It has been extended until October 31, 2025. It’s at the Center for Jewish History, 15 West 16th Street, New York, NY (between 5th and 6th Avenues).

EFF How to Fix the Internet Podcast Episode: Digital Autonomy for Bodily Autonomy

Little Bosses Everywhere review: Pyramid schemes are as American as apple pie.

The Diabolical World of Phone Scams

Family-Vlogger Documentary Trend Magnifies a Serious Societal Problem

A scientist was urged not to take a risky cosmic image. He didn’t listen.

Ruth Buzzi, the Lady With the Handbag on ‘Laugh-In,’ Dies at 88

Monty Python’s Life of Brian. It’s hilarious, but is it in any way accurate? Answered for us by classicist Honor Cargill-Martin

Pentasyllabic is a word that both means and is five syllables long.

Do The Spike Thing — The Defiant Director on Reuniting With Denzel, Bad Money and Resisting

Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery

Why the Laugh Track Won’t Die

Why the U.S. Government Really Wants Some People To Take Vacations and The Phone Calls That Cost €220 Million a Minute (for Life) and How Jibberish Beat a Prison Sentence and The Rain of Fish

MUSIC

Never Let Me Go – Andy Bey; Smooth Sailing -Andy & The Bey Sisters; In Memoriam: Andy Bey, 1939-2025

Jill Sobule, “I Kissed A Girl” and “Supermodel” Singer, Dies at 66. Singer Vance Gilbert wrote on Facebook (May 3): “Backstage, Jill and I bonded with the idea of someday doing an album of the saddest songs we could think of. When we were last hanging out, the list looked like this: Ballad Of The Sad Young Men; Sweet Bitter Love; Do What You Gotta Do; Train Off The Track.

“While we were waiting to go on, I’d play one of these songs, and Jill and I would cry, and then try to put on some kind of game face while laughing for the set. Just last year, I had signed with a new agency, Black Oak Artists, and Jill and I shared an agent, and there were plans for sending us out together to do shows.

“Tomorrow really is never guaranteed. I will forever feel the loss of not having that future time together.”

Incompetent! – A Randy Rainbow Song Parody

Ablassen by Gottfried Reiche

From -Bon Iver

Coverville 1532: The Foreigner Cover Story II and 1533: Tribute to Mike Peters and Captain & Tennille Cover Story

Never Enough – Turnstile

Here – Pavement

Who is Broken Peach?

offa me -davido feat victoria monet

Gentle On My Mind – The Band Perry

Yesterday Was Just The Beginning Of My Life – Mark Williams

Star Wars – The Throne Room and End Title