Ramblin' with Roger

November rambling: America’s Greatness

Second Cousin or Once Removed?

America’s Greatness: A Guest Commentary

The Vibecession and the AI bubble

America’s got a Jenga economy

Citizens United and the Decline of US Democracy: Assessing the Decision’s Impact 15 Years Later

A Vast Camera System Now Feeds Police Information on Drivers Across the US. They have been called invasive, insecure, and unconstitutional.

Public Media: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

America is sliding toward illiteracy

Veterans Charities to Avoid

Panel discussion at Hampshire College’s 55th anniversary celebration: “Urgent and Unbounded: The Role of Liberal Arts Education in an Age of Rising Authoritarianism,” featuring filmmaker and historian Ken Burns, 71F, AI expert and author Gary Marcus, 86F, and Dr. Lynn Pasquerella, P08, president of the American Association of Colleges and Universities.

The Wonderful Public Domain of Oz

Boss preppers: What does a captain of industry have to offer after the sh*t hits the fan?

Short of Medicare for All, Bernie Sanders Offers Democrats 6 Other Ways to Tackle Healthcare Crisis

Disney has lost Roger Rabbit.

Terrible Maps and a very tall garden shed

How a humble weed became a superstar of biology

What’s a capitonym? It is a prime example of the power of capitalization: a single letter can transform a regular noun, such as “turkey,” into a proper noun with a different meaning — “Turkey.”

Building a Book Lamp – actually, building a lamp made out of books

The Chinese Ban on “Fried Rice” and The Lake That Killed Its Neighbors, and At Least He Was Right About the Cake Thing? and Does This Expensive Coffee Taste Like Poop?

Relations

Because I was asked: Second Cousin or Once Removed? Untangling the Family Tree. The Kennedy example: Caroline, JFK’s daughter, and RFK Jr, RFK’s son, are first cousins.

Caroline’s son, Jack Schlossberg (who’s running for Congress in NYC), is RFK Jr.’s first cousin once removed. “If someone is your cousin ‘once removed,’ that means they’re one generation above or below you. For example, your mother’s cousin is your first cousin once removed.” Jack’s sister, Tatiana Schlossberg, also RFK Jr.’s first cousin once removed, announced she has a rare terminal cancer. She noted: “Throughout my treatment, he had been on the national stage… mostly as an embarrassment to me and the rest of my immediate family.”

Metamucilini and company

Shorter Days, Signs of Fatigue: He Faces Realities of Aging in Office

In Courting Saudi Arabia, He Emulates MBS’s Authoritarianism

RFK, Jr. Violates Agreement On CDC Vaccine Guidance, Putting Millions At Risk

The FDA Commissioner Is Missing the Point of Advisory Committees — Makary’s hand-picked panels lack diversity of opinion, robust evidence reviews, and credibility

Swastikas and Nooses Are No Longer Hate Symbols Under New Coast Guard Rules

Soldiers Must Disobey Unlawful Orders — It’s Their Legal Duty

List of Degrees Not Classed As ‘Professional’ by Regime

Marjorie Taylor Greene resigns: Read her statement in full. I’m oddly annoyed that he chooses to misspell her last name as Green.

MUSIC

Reggae legend Jimmy Cliff dies, aged 81. The Harder They Come; Many Rivers To Cross

Robert Plant: Tiny Desk Concert, Nov 21, 2025

J. Eric Smith’s Genre Delve: British Folk Rock and Metal vs Hard Rock

Coverville 1558: The Neil Young Cover Story IV

MTG Has Broken Cover – Marsh Family parody of “Billie Jean” by MJ about Marjorie Taylor Greene

Tomorrow Never Knows – The Beatles

The Beatles Songbook – Christine Pedi

Heaven -James McCartney

Vltava (The Moldau) by Bedrich Smetana

Spill The Wine – Eric Burdon & War

Waterways by Ludovico Einaudi

Not One Of Us – Peter Gabriel

The Hunt for Red October suite by Basil Poledouris

Bach Fugue -The Newfangled Four | GWC 50th Anniversary Show

The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald – Born Free

White Rabbit – Jefferson Airplane

Long May You Run – The Stills-Young Band

Time Of The Season– The Zombies

My Fair Lady overture

Take Me or Leave Me – Idina Menzel · Tracie Thoms from RENT OST

Table for Two, Away from the Band, Please – Road Work Ahead

Organist John Jasper McClellan (1874-1925) performs the Overture from Tännhauser (1845) by Richard Wagner (1813-1883). It’s one of the oldest acoustic (church) pipe organ recordings ever made, from late August and early September 1910 in the Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City, Utah. Given the label print from the disc, this must have been a later production run of this record.

We Built This City – Starship

Blame It on the Record Label

You can count or plan on me?

“It’s a silent night. It’s another year”

You can count or plan on me? Reportedly, there was confusion. “In the TikTok post, the person played several versions of ‘I’ll Be Home for Christmas,’ including those performed by artists Bing Crosby, Perry Como, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, and the Carpenters.” Only Carpenters used “count.” Later versions tended to lean toward “count.”

From the Library of Congress: “On October 4, 1943, Crosby recorded ‘I’ll Be Home for Christmas’ with the John Scott Trotter Orchestra for Decca Records. Within about a month of its being copyrighted, the song hit the music charts and remained there for eleven weeks, peaking at number three. The following year, the song reached number nineteen on the charts.

“It touched a tender place in the hearts of Americans, both soldiers and civilians, who were then in the depths of World War II, and it earned Crosby his fifth gold record. ‘I’ll Be Home for Christmas’ became the most requested song at Christmas U.S.O. shows in both Europe and the Pacific. Yank, the GI magazine, said Crosby accomplished more for military morale than anyone else of that era.”

I attended a holiday concert in the late 1990s at a venue in the College of Saint Rose. The show featured Kim and Reggie Harris and the duo Magpie. Someone told a story—the details are lost to me—about how so many GIs did not make it home for Christmas. All I know is that by the time they sang, “If only in my dreams,” I was weeping. And it still makes me melancholy.

Another lyric change

Here’s Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas by Judy Garland, from the movie Meet Me in St. Louis, which Kelly convincingly argues is better than the lyric changes Sinatra made. She sings:

Someday soon we all will be together,
if the fates allow;
Until then, we’ll have to muddle through somehow,
So have yourself a merry little Christmas now.

He changes the “muddle” line to “Hang a shining star upon the highest bough.” It’s more optimistic, but the film’s situation doesn’t call for it. And I relate to “muddle through.”

The late Diane Hall

Until she died, I did not know this: “‘First Christmas’ is Diane Keaton’s debut Holiday Song. A reflection on cherished memories and moments of the stories of life. The song and video celebrate the joy and peace found in holding these memories close. The original song was co-written by the legendary Carole Bayer Sager and Jonas Myrin, with Myrin also taking the helm as producer. “

It echoes another song mentioned here:

Hearing “I’ll Be Home For Christmas”
It only makes me miss him
When you love someone for so, so long
Yet they’re not coming home

The snow falls on my window
I wish that I could let go
It’s a silent night
It’s another year
The first Christmas without you here

Several commenters believed she recorded this knowing she was dying. I have no idea, but it is poignant.

Continuation of Thankful

fixing the computer, sort of

This is a continuation of thankful, which I started last week. I’m not including the Thursday night choir rehearsals, Sunday morning church services, or events presented in some standalone posts, all of which would qualify.

DATE: Tuesday, the 11th. I was to meet Jim at an Albany restaurant, Ale and Oyster, a guy from far out of town visiting his adult daughter, who now lives in the Capital District. He opened the restaurant door and saw a black guy. He said, “Is your name Roger?” And it was! Just not the correct Roger.

We, including his daughter, ate. He and I swapped stories, some about the Beatles; he remembers the ABC-TV cartoon series better than I. His hometown didn’t have an ABC affiliate until 1970, whereas Binghamton got one in 1962, still later than the bigger cities. Hmm—I know most of the lyrics to Mister Ed, a show his daughter does not recall and I haven’t seen in decades. I was challenged to list the Presidents backwards; yes, I can do it.

Charter schools

Then onto the library. Ryane McAuliffe Straus discussed and read from her book, Divided by Choice: How Charter Schools Diminish Democracy. She based her work on a few dozen interviews involving parents and others in the Albany area. She pushed back on many of the racially tinged tropes about the Albany City School District; as well as being an academic, she’s also a mother of children who are or were students in the ACSD. Read the description on the NYU Press website.

Since she was formerly a professor of political science at Saint Rose College before it closed recently, it was not a surprise, but still that Smallbany thing, when one of the attendees knew people I knew; our church choir director had also worked at CSR.

DATE: Wednesday, the 12th: I went to see my allergist for my annual evaluation at Corporate (frickin’) Woods. While I like the new person – my previous provider warned me last year warned me two years running that she was going to retire – I don’t miss going to C(f)W.

Computer games

Then I went to Best Buy. My keyboard has been driving me crazy for several days. The J, Q, and Delete keys failed to operate. When I got to the Geek Squad counter, a man was berating the customer service rep because he had tried to make an appointment online but was unable to. I noted that I couldn’t either, but said it wasn’t the rep’s fault.

The irate customer said that he had driven two hours. He was told that he could make an appointment for three hours out, which he did.

The rep, addressing me, noticed that there was a cancellation for a slot in ten minutes and that they could try to help me. Though I said that I had owned my laptop for three or four years, he determined that it was built in 2018 – I had bought it secondhand – so they couldn’t help me. If they had sent it off, it would have cost me $85; it wouldn’t have been fixed, and I would have been out the 85 bucks.

Instead, he recommended that I buy a keyboard, which I discovered cost a whopping $12. Incidentally, the sales clerk was a friend of my daughter’s.

Since I had previously found a block to plug into my USB ports, I could utilize not only the keyboard but also my backup stick and a mouse, which I still love to use.

When I want to use voice recognition (Windows + h), all I have to do is unplug the whatchamcallit. It’s a clunky but workable solution.

Old friends

DATE: Thursday, the 13th. I had a 100-minute conversation with my oldest college friend. He may be coming up one of these days.

DATE: Friday, the 14th. I talked for 110 minutes to another old friend, a former comic book store customer with whom I’ve worked occasionally over the years. He subsequently texted me that my penny post led him to a “unique historical moment,” which pleased me greatly.

My wife and I went out to dinner at Suwan Thai on Western Avenue in honor of our lunaversary. We try to go out somewhere once a month. It keeps things fresh. But I should not order the spicy versions, I have determined.

I like going to that location. For years, I patronized the Ginger Man for decades until it closed in 2017. I used to live a block away.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Lydster: peanuts!

immunotherapy?

Peanuts! As I noted, our daughter developed a tree nut and peanut allergy. We discovered this when she was about 2 1/2 and had a cookie served by someone else.

1440 had a helpful summary. According to a study published in Pediatrics, “new food allergies in the US have dropped 36% in 10 years. The drop follows a 2015 landmark trial on peanuts and shifting national guidance on early introduction to food allergens.” Ah, if it had only been available a decade or sooner.

Wow. “About 60,000 children have avoided developing peanut allergies after guidance first issued in 2015 upended medical practice by recommending introducing the allergen to infants starting as early as 4 months.” I’ve seen stories on the evening news, but without sufficient detail. This is REALLY interesting to me.

My wife, daughter, and I have asked restaurant servers about their processes. Some places provide more diligence than others; you can immediately sense it.

“Researchers analyzed electronic health records for roughly 125,000 children from 48 pediatric practices across the US. They looked at cohorts of children ages 0-3 before and after a 2015 trial found that feeding peanut products to babies cut their allergy risk by over 80%.” This is great news.

“Guidance was updated to encourage early introduction of peanuts to high-risk children; today, parents are encouraged to introduce peanuts and eight other common allergens to children, regardless of risk level.” High risk includes kids with severe eczema.

“By 2020, an estimated 57,000 fewer children developed food allergies alongside the evolving recommendations. Read the complete study here.”

I can’t help but wonder how that would have worked out if we knew then what we know now.

Treatment

There is also a Peanut Allergy Treatment. “In recent years, peanut immunotherapy has emerged as a treatment option. It is for adults and most children.

“Peanut allergy immunotherapy is a treatment that focuses on building tolerance to peanuts. It desensitizes the body to the allergen.

“The treatment starts with a tiny amount of peanut protein, then gradually increases to larger amounts until a target dose is reached. Building up peanut exposure desensitizes the patient to higher doses of peanut protein.

“Peanut allergy immunotherapy is a treatment, not a cure. It is designed to reduce the frequency and severity of allergic reactions. This includes life-threatening anaphylaxis.”

We haven’t talked about this. However, she had a couple of scares in South Africa, where the labeling was not as robust as in the United States. If she wanted to start treatment, I would hope it would be while she’s still on my insurance for the next few years.

RIP, CBS Saturday Morning

Michelle Miller, Dana Jacobson

**Dana Jacobson, Jeff Glor, Michelle Miller**

I have been fond of the program CBS Saturday Morning. It may be continuing, though the info/staffing at this writing is unclear. Regardless, it won’t be the same.

As you may have read, Bari Weiss is what Daily Kos called “the contrarian Substacker turned editor-in-chief of CBS News.” John Oliver is not a fan, either.

As the Guardian reported on October 29, “CBS News staffers lose jobs in ‘bloodbath’ as part of sweeping cuts from Paramount. The corporation is laying off about 1,000 staffers, including some in news, as part of a longer-term cost-cutting plan.

“The network has closed its Johannesburg bureau and is cancelling its CBS Mornings Plus and CBS Evening News Plus streaming shows. The network’s Saturday-morning program will undergo a format change, according to a source with knowledge of the changes… The network’s race and culture unit was gutted.”

Some leaving include Debora Patta, who worked out of Johannesburg, Nancy Chen, Lisa Ling, Janet Shamblian, Nikki Batiste, and the two remaining anchors of CBS Saturday Morning, Dana Jacobson and Michelle Miller.

History

Per Wikipedia, the network had tried a variety of news programming in the 7-9 a.m. Saturday slot, but it has not been very successful over the past nearly 30 years. I remember several of the anchors. But in my mind, it didn’t “click” until the team of Anthony Mason (2012-2019), Michelle Miller (2018–2025), and Dana Jacobson (2018–2025) came together in 2018.

The show, for me, had a good mix of news of the day in the first half-hour and human-interest pieces. It featured the James Beard award-winning “The Dish”, which features profiles of chefs and restaurateurs. The “Saturday Sessions” increasingly focused on independent artists.

Mason knows more about popular music than anyone I’ve ever seen. He was moved to the weekday morning show but left to do more in-depth music pieces for several CBS programs.

On June 22, 2019, Jeff Glor joined Jacobson and Miller as co-host of CBS This Morning: Saturday, later retitled CBS Saturday Morning. This was a big comedown for Glor, who became the new weekday anchor of the CBS Evening News on December 4, 2017, only to be replaced after May 10, 2019.

But he, like Anthony Mason, had a steady rapport with Dana and Michelle. He did great interviews with authors. Unfortunately, CBS laid off Buffalo native Glor and three reporters in late September 2024. His last show was on September 28, allowing him to bid farewell to viewers.

According to reports, the decision in the autumn of 2025 to oust the executive producer Brian Applegate, along with Miller and Jacobson, is reportedly a part of a broader restructuring initiative. Dana Jacobson and Michelle Miller say goodbye in an emotional final signoff on November 22, 2025. Here’s a 2022 interview with Applegate on the chemistry of SatMo.

Last two

Read the impressive bios of Miller and Jacobson. I’m a bit surprised at the ouster of Dana, given her background in sports, having previously worked with ESPN and having covered NCAA women’s basketball for CBS.

“Since joining CBS News in 2004, Michelle Miller has reported on stories of national and international importance. Her reporting around social justice has been groundbreaking. From her coverage of the killings of George Floyd, Trayvon Martin, and Michael Brown, the nationwide outrage of the Emanuel 9 Massacre in Charleston, and sexual assault allegations against prominent celebrities, Miller has been at the forefront of CBS News’ reporting on the protest movement involving these issues.” Given CBS’s recent fear of appearing too DEI, this should not have been a surprise to me, yet it was.

I’m going to tune in on Saturday, November 28, to see what Weiss hath wrought.