Ramblin' with Roger

The unsurprising “War on Thanksgiving” lie

cheap applause material

war on Thanksgiving You may have seen the New York magazine article. “Trump Says Liberals Want to Change the Name of ‘Thanksgiving'”.

This bothered me more than his usual rubbish. He tells this tale to his supporters in Sunrise, Florida. “As we gather together for Thanksgiving, you know, some people want to change the name Thanksgiving. They don’t want to use the term Thanksgiving.”

If this were correct, it would be distressing. But this “war on Thanksgiving” is untrue. “Even the Fox & Friends crew struggled to substantiate the president’s claim… They… entertained the possibility that Trump was referencing a long-debunked rumor that Barack Obama tried to change the holiday’s name to Celebrate Immigrants Day by executive order.

I was pleased to find that Hot Air, a very conservative site, confirms the BS quality of the story. They speculated that perhaps “a guest or a host made an offhand comment on some Fox News show (e.g., “Next thing you know with these liberals, there’ll be a war on Thanksgiving!”).

TV age

The TV was on and Trump “either misheard it or misunderstood it…” Or intentionally misstated it. “Suddenly the imperative to support [him] in all things requires righties to back him up by at least pretending there’s a ‘war on Thanksgiving.'”

Or maybe, “two Fox News executives bet each other a dollar, a la the Dukes in ‘Trading Places,’ over whether one of them could turn an inane idea like the ‘war on Thanksgiving’ into a bona fide moral panic among Fox’s elderly Republican viewership. Starting with the most important elderly Republican of all.”

It’s likely “they were inspired by a random greenie piece at HuffPost about how to limit one’s carbon footprint on the holiday. Eat veggie instead of eating turkey, for instance… Buy locally to minimize emissions generated by transporting food — you know how this song goes.

“The piece doesn’t call for boycotting Thanksgiving, though, or otherwise object to the concept behind the holiday. And it certainly doesn’t call for changing the name. It’s about climate change, not some bizarre conscientious objection to the practice of giving thanks.”

Of course, the new resident of Florida is also claiming that there was an attack on the big December holiday as well. “But now everybody’s using Christmas again. Remember this?” He claims credit for beating back the fictitious “war on Christmas.” He needed another “win” using “some cheap applause material about political correctness gone mad.”

The United States requires a leader who will bring people together, not a person who prevaricates to show up “them” as somehow lesser Americans.

Actor Jeff Bridges turns the Big 7-0

Starman: I do know the rules.

Somehow, I have a difficult time thinking of Jeff Bridges turning 70 because of Sea Hunt. Jeff appeared in four episodes, and his eight-years-older brother Beau a couple of times in the series. Sea Hunt starred their late father Lloyd, an early syndicated show in the late 1950s.

You probably know Lloyd Bridges best from the movie Airplane! Actually, Jeff and his brother both made their film debuts, without billing, alongside their mother Dorothy Dean Bridges (née Simpson) in the film The Company She Keeps (1951).

While I’ve seen Jeff in a few films, I’ve NOT seen most of his iconic roles. Need to fix that, surely. I did catch him in The Last Picture Show (1969), The Fisher King (1991), Iron Man (2008), and Crazy Heart (2009).

Starman (1984) which I loved, has one of my favorite pieces of dialogue:
Starman [Jeff Bridges]: Okay?
Jenny Hayden [Karen Allen]: Okay? Are you crazy? You almost got us killed! You said you watched me, you said you knew the rules!
Starman: I do know the rules.
Jenny Hayden: Oh, for your information pal, that was a yellow light back there!
Starman: I watched you very carefully. Red light stop, green light go, yellow light go very fast.

I have soundtracks of two Bridges films that I did not see, Against All Odds (1984) and Tucker: The Man and His Dream (1988), the latter containing Joe Jackson songs. I also have the Crazy Heart soundtrack, on which Bridges gives credible performances.

Bowling

But I missed TRON (1982), The Fabulous Baker Boys (1988), and Hell or High Water (2016), among others. And I have never seen, all the way through, The Big Lebowski (1998). I’m quite aware of its cultural significance of The Dude.

The Big Lebowski played at the Madison Theatre, three blocks from my house, less than a half-decade ago, but the timing didn’t work out. Now I have seen large chunks of it, and for that matter, TRON, on TV from time to time. If the Madison ever reopens and brings it back, I’ll be in line.

Jeff Bridges turns the Big 7-0 today.

Two Virgins and the Vermont Republic

Virgin Queen

Vermont road map VA Virginia, a state – a commonwealth – in the southeastern US. Capital: Richmond. Largest city: Virginia Beach.

Since I wrote about Virginia five years ago, I’ll just note that the state was “named for Queen Elizabeth I of England, who was known as the Virgin Queen. Historians think the English adventurer Sir Walter Raleigh suggested the name about 1584.”

VI Virgin Islands, a US territory in the Caribbean. Capital and largest city: Charlotte Amalie, on the island of St. Thomas.

The US Virgin Islands were sold to the United States by Denmark in the Treaty of the Danish West Indies of 1917. Other islands in the archipelago are controlled by the United Kingdom.

“Christopher Columbus named the islands after Saint Ursula and the 11,000 Virgins (Spanish: Santa Úrsula y las Once Mil Vírgenes), shortened to the Virgins (las Vírgenes). ”

GREEN Mountain State

VT Vermont, a New England state of the US. Capital: Montpelier. Largest city: Burlington

I wrote about our 2015 vacation. The truth is, I’ve been all over Vermont. A wedding on Lake Champlain, several choir performances in my Methodist days, even shopping. Of course, I’m inherently fond of the state, since it involves the color green.

On the Travel Trivia website, it listed 5 Countries That No Longer Exist. One was the Vermont Republic.

“On January 15, 1777, Vermont became the Vermont Republic, with its own Declaration of Independence, elected assembly, money, postal service, military, and diplomatic relations. Vermont was joined in its decade and a half of sovereignty by sixteen New Hampshire towns and a few more from New York.

“They were eventually given back to their states when Vermont joined the union [in 1791 when it became the 14th state], but it was a process by which Congress, New York, and New Hampshire recognized Vermont’s sovereignty. That means Vermont’s time as an independent nation wasn’t a fun historical quirk; it was a tangible expression of North American international freedom.”

For the verdant ABC Wednesday

Kennedy Center: EWF; Sally; Linda; Sesame St; MTT

Field, Ronstadt, Tilson Thomas

The 42nd Annual Kennedy Center Honors will air Sunday, December 15 – earlier than usual – at 8 p.m. EST. CBS has broadcast the special each year since its debut. The event will take place on December 8. Earth, Wind & Fire; Sally Field; Linda Ronstadt; Sesame Street; and Michael Tilson Thomas will be celebrated.

Michael Tilson Thomas

American conductor, pianist and composer Michael Tilson Thomas is a familiar name. He is currently music director of the San Francisco Symphony, though he announced in 2017 that he would step down in 2020. He’s also “artistic director of the New World Symphony, an American orchestral academy based in Miami Beach, Florida.”

He has his own YouTube channel. NPR mentions him frequently. A 2019 article in Vulture describes him a “disrupter who’s become the comfortable center.”

Michael Tilson Thomas is the only one in this group that had not appeared in this blog before now.

Sally Field

I wrote an extensive post about Sally Field in November 2016 when she turned 70. I’d seen her in everything from Gidget to Sybil to Brothers and Sisters. And she’s still working.

Earth, Wind & Fire

Their introduction on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame page says it well. Earth, Wind & Fire “took jazz, soul, gospel, pop and more and wrapped them in one psychedelic, mystical package.” The band was founded in Chicago by the late Maurice White in 1969.

Rolling Stone offered up 12 essential songs. My personal favorite is Fantasy, as I explained. I own the box set of their music.

You might recognize the name Philip Bailey, the falsetto vocalist, who sang a duet with Phil Collins on Easy Lover.

Linda Ronstadt

My admiration for Linda is huge. For her sixtieth birthday, I explained why I bought her box set when I already owned so much of her music. I advocated that she be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. She was rightly inducted in 2014.

When she turned 70, I listed about three dozen of my favorite songs by her. I touted the documentary about her, which played at a local theater for months.

Sesame Street

I’ll admit it; I watched Sesame Street when I was in college, as I noted in 2011. The beloved children’s television show was shaped by the African-American communities in Harlem and beyond. Of course, I bought the 10th anniversary music album.

Farmers Insurance has been running a series of ads featuring the Muppets. Take a look at the website and the music of Sesame Street. The USPS to release stamps in honor of show’s 50th anniversary.

Since he won’t be at the event, I suppose I can share, from Business Insider back in 2017: “‘Sesame Street’ has been mocking Trump since 1988 — here are some of the best moments.”

2019: significant anniversary for HIV/AIDS

The virus is still very much around.

what is HIV Because some folks seem to believe that HIV/AIDS is cured, some statistics:

In 2018 (the latest data available)…
37.9 million [32.7 million–44.0 million] people globally were living with HIV.
23.3 million [20.5 million–24.3 million] people were accessing antiretroviral therapy.
1.7 million [1.4 million–2.3 million] people became newly infected with HIV.
770 000 [570 000–1.1 million] people died from AIDS-related illnesses.

In the United States, “approximately 1.1 million people… are living with HIV today. About 15 percent of them (1 in 7) are unaware they are infected. An estimated 38,700 Americans became newly infected with HIV in 2016.”

An article in US News notes that 2019 is a significant anniversary. “HIV and AIDS have been part of the world’s consciousness for 40 years now. In 1979 and 1980, doctors in Los Angeles and New York were suddenly reporting rare types of pneumonia, cancer, and other illnesses…

“Today, AIDS is fairly well controlled – in developed countries anyway. But the virus, which actually has been infecting humans since at least 1959, and perhaps since the late 1940s, according to the AIDS Institute, is still very much around.”

Why do nearly 1000 girls and young women contract HIV every day?

PrEP

A couple years back, there was a presentation at my church about Pre-exposure prophylaxis (or PrEP). It is “a way for people who do not have HIV but who are at very high risk of getting HIV to prevent HIV infection by taking a pill every day.

“The pill (brand name Truvada)” – which is advertised on American television – “contains two medicines (tenofovir and emtricitabine). [They are] used in combination with other medicines to treat the disease. When someone is exposed to HIV through sex or injection drug use, these medicines can work to keep the virus from establishing a permanent infection.”

Here’s what the US budget in fighting HIV/AIDS has looked like in the past decade or so.

I was happy to get to “know” Ruth, an HIV survivor, who is nursing others in Sierra Leone with the disease.

From April 2018 in the NYT magazine: Those we lost to the AIDS epidemic. Someone posted on Facebook recently six actors we lost prematurely. I DO remember two of the performers, Merritt Butrick and Tom Villard.

And Pedro Zamora died 25 years ago, hours after Real World San Francisco ended. Yes, I did watch that season.

The Library of Congress will house the archives of the famous AIDS quilt