Ramblin' with Roger

For Constitution Day, please watch 13th

from 300,000 inmates in 1970 to over 2 million today

13th amendment My daughter has watched the documentary 13th (2016) about a half dozen times. She compelled me to watch it recently as well, and now I commend it to you.

13th refers to the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”

The problem is that section that is italicized section effectively meant that people, specifically black people, would be arrested on minor charges such as vagrancy or loitering, and ended up being leased out to industry. It was Slavery by Another Name.

This was followed by Jim Crow segregation and lynching, enhanced in no small part by D. W. Griffith’s film The Birth of a Nation (1915). The modern civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s arose from the death of Emmett Till. But it was stifled by the mass incarceration efforts of Presidents Nixon, Reagan and Clinton, which affected blacks disproportionately.

Even Newt Gingrich, the former Speaker of the House of Representatives, noted in the film that the much greater sentencing for crack, more often used by blacks, than for powder cocaine preferred by white people.

The country went from having about 300,000 inmates in 1970 to over 2 million today, about 40% black because of various sentencing guidelines. The US has 25% of the incarcerated in the world, though it has but 5% of the world’s population.

13th was directed and co-written by Ava DuVernay, who had directed Selma (2014). Participants include Michelle Alexander, Cory Booker, Angela Davis, Henry Louis Gates, Van Jones, Grover Norquist, Charles Rangel, Bryan Stevenson, and several others. Plus archival footage of Lee Atwater, and every President after JFK.

Watch 13th HERE (96 minutes). See the preview HERE.

Listen to:

Letter To The Free – Common ft. Bilal
Work Song – Nina Simone
Human – Rag’n’Bone Man

How To Optimize Your Weight Loss Efforts

cave-like environment

By Erika Long

Losing weight can be a struggle but luckily there are tips and tricks that are proven to make weight loss efforts more effective.

Avoid drinking calories and stick to water

If consuming snacks is the first weight loss saboteur, drinking liquid calories is a close second. What we drink can pose the same threat as a calorie-laden snack as it’s easy to guzzle down a couple hundred calories from one sugary beverage.

Whether it’s blended coffee concoctions, sodas, or sports drinks, unless it’s a nutrient-dense smoothie that is replacing a meal, stick with drinking only water as it’s a natural appetite suppressant and is also necessary for fat burning.

Water should make up around 90% of our liquid intake. Drink the recommended 64 oz per day and another 24-32 oz during and after a workout. A glass of cold ice water in the morning is said to both give us energy as well as boost our metabolism.

If you find the taste of water itself a little too boring, add a slice of cucumber, lemon, lime or a couple berries to give it a bit more flavor. If you add this to your diet and also use a fat burner supplement, results will be almost immediate, you can try the nutrisystem program to see better results .

Get to bed and sleep

The beauty of this tip is that it has nothing to do with diet or exercise. Actually, you don’t have to lift a finger. Sleep helps to stabilize your metabolism and regulates the hormones needed to release excess weight. When we are sleep deprived, we are more likely to crave foods that give fast energy like ones full of sugar.

By going to bed by 10 pm and getting 7-9 hours of sleep, we get in balance and can wake up with a clearer head and more refreshed body. We make better choices, like sticking to our calorie allotment and going to the gym, and avoid ones like snacking and staying up late.

For the best sleep, it’s important to practice good sleep hygiene. Basically, strive for a cave-like environment: dark, cool and quiet. Reduce light exposure starting an hour before bed, keep the bedroom between 60-67 degrees Fahrenheit and use a white noise machine to block out extraneous noise if necessary.

Intermittent fasting is worth a try

Intermittent fasting is praised for its effectiveness at supporting weight loss. Fasting is abstaining from eating for a period of time. With intermittent fasting, it’s recommended to have an “eating window” which is when you consume food then the rest of time is a water fast.

The most effective type of intermittent fasting is the 16/8 method – which means that you fast for 16 hours and eat for 8. You determine the eating window time that works best for you. For example, stop eating by 8 pm and start eating at noon the next day. Basically, you get to have a hearty dinner, then at 10 pm, sleep for eight hours and for “breakfast” you drink water and then starting at 12 noon, you eat your allotted calories until 8 pm.

Intermittent fasting supports hormone levels and cellular repair as well as reduces oxidative stress and inflammation while increasing the body’s ability to breakdown fat. Hunger tends to only be a problem when first adopting this technique, but the body adapts fairly quickly to this new habit.

Conclusion

When giving the body good nutrition and daily exercise in conjunction with these three tips, the healthy, lean body you desire is within reach. The key to maintaining a healthy body weight is consistency. Give these three tips a try for the next 30 days and see how your health and weight improve.

Erika Long loves corgis, curry and comedy. Always searching for the next great snuggle, flavor or laugh, she inspires people to live their best life now. When not writing, Erika can be found at her local brewery dominating Harry Potter trivia night.

Sept. rambling: “I want you to panic”

Dustbury on Kim Kashkashian

1973 male entertainers — 1973 benefit. Larry Karaszewski tweet: “We Are The World”. From HERE

Don’t Use These Free-Speech Arguments Ever Again

Follow-up to “How Should We Rewrite the Second Amendment?”

The spy in your wallet: Credit cards have a privacy problem

The Focus on 1619 as the Beginning of Slavery in the U.S. Damages Our Understanding of American History

The White Power Movement From Reagan to Trump

Pediatricians reveal that racism can negatively affect children’s health

#MeToo-era study says Women facing ‘massive increase in hostility’ in workplace

Government Cannot Select the Right Immigrants

On climate change, “I want you to panic”

Alaska’s Sea Ice Completely Melted for First Time in Recorded History

The legacy of ‘boys will be boys’ on American life

Trump is Abnormal, It’s His Superpower

Trump’s Scottish resort: Air Force crew made an odd stop on a routine trip

Dumber than a box of markers

Unions make us strong

I learn something from criticism because when it comes from sources you respect you always examine it and learn. – Maurice Strong

How Do You Decide What’s Right and Wrong?

In defense of reading the same book over and over again

The language rules we know – but don’t know we know

AP Stylebook Changes Hyphen Guidance, Ushering In Total Chaos

Outraged Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Mayor bans comic due to kiss; kiss plastered over international media. STORY

It’s OK to Cry

Appreciation: Valerie Harper and the timeless cool of Rhoda Morgenstern

Howie Morris would have been 100

‘Dustbury’ blogging pioneer Charles Hill completes final tour

Ken Levine: Meet Corporal Klinger – Jamie Farr

Mark Evanier: 100 things I learned about the comic book industry

Welcome to the World of Competitive Wiffle Ball

The new old people

Dustbury: Amusement is where you find it

How to Increase Your Laptop Battery Life

Now I Know: New York City’s Late Pass and The Man Who Beat the Scratch Lottery and The Crime-Busting Pizza Topping and Let There Be Lighght and The Man Who Beat the Scratch Lottery and The Russian Plot to Replicate the Moon and How Not To Use a Very Fast Internet Hookup

The Perfection of the Paper Clip

NOT ME: In Kibler, Police Chief Roger Green rescued an elderly woman from her flooded home about 4:30 a.m. Saturday

MUSIC

Sleep by Eric Whitacre – VOCES8

Dustbury: Several short works by György Kurtág, performed by Kim Kashkashian

Coverville: 1276: The Elvis Costello Cover Story and 1277: Cover Stories for Barry White and The Stranglers

It’s Quiet Uptown – Kelly Clarkson

2011 Tony Awards, hosted by Neil Patrick Harris. show close with a rap number summarizing the evening, written by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Tommy Kail

How Hamilton Works: 10 Reasons 10 Duel Commandments Is Amazing

Michael Kamen’s score for Highlander

Something – The Beatles: Take 39 /Instrumental/Strings Only and 2019 Mix

K-Chuck Radio: Taylor Swift’s not so new idea

Dustbury: An emo version of Baby Shark

Jazz Is a Music of Perseverance Against Racism and Capitalism

Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice

She seizes control of her life’s narrative

I went to the 12:55 pm showing of the documentary Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice at the Spectrum Theatre in Albany, NY on the day it opened in town. There were a total of five people there, and I suspect they’re all over sixty. (In fact, I know the pair of women in line were because they ALSO took the senior discount.)

I can tell you that we were all blown away. Sad that she no longer sing (mostly) because of her Parkinson’s disease. Her last concert was in 2009. If you’ve seen the movie up to that point, you suspect that someone who was less than the perfectionist she was/is could have milked her career for another two or three years.

Naturally, because I’m like that, I then went to the early Rotten Tomatoes reviews. 85% positive from the critics, 100% positive from the fans. I’ve decided to address the negative reviews.

“She suddenly seizes control of her life’s narrative, careening herself towards a series of bizarre, baffling creative decisions that inexplicably kept succeeding.” As the film makes clear, she was tired of being on the road in arenas.

The decisions to do Pirates of Penzance was a function of the music she grew up with. Joseph Papp would have given her the gig, but she wanted to be sure she was right for the part.

Ditto her three American songbook albums. She heard those tunes in her youth and wanted to sing them, getting someone like Nelson Riddle to arrange it, only to discover the man himself was available.

Her foray into Mexican music came from growing up singing in Spanish the tunes from her father’s heritage, Germans who moved to Mexico in the 19th century.

Hagiography?

“It isn’t long into the film when the hagiographic soundbites from famous interviewees become the dominant mode.” Also, “Ronstadt speaks of herself honestly and modestly, but the talking-heads tributes in this doc are trite.”

I have seen documentaries when one could say, “Why are THEY here?” as they ramble about the subject. But we’re talking Don Henley, who was a drummer for her in an early band before he met Glenn Frey and started the Eagles. Jackson Browne was part of that scene, touring with Linda.

Emmylou Harris was befriended by Linda after Gram Parsons’ death, as explained in the film. Dolly Parton, who in the extended trailer calls Linda a PITA. The alchemy of their three voices in the Trio sessions awed them all.

I got sufficient insight into Linda from herself and the others. There were details I had totally forgotten. The original version of Different Drum by the Stone Poneys – Linda Kenny Edwards, Bobby Kimmel- was not successful. But the re-recording made it to #13 on the pop charts in 1968.

If I had any complaints is that The Sound of My Voice gave short shrift to her latter output, at least a half dozen albums, including one with Harris and another with Ann Savoy.

If you love Linda’s music, see this film. If you’re not familiar with the range of her work, see this film. Here’s the Still within the Sound of My Voice, the opening tune from the 1989 album Cry Like a Rainstorm, Howl Like the Wind.

A tree falls in Albany

Estimated Time of Restoration – Assessing

As I’ve noted, my family had this great week in the Berkshires in western Massachusetts in mid-August, most of which I’ve noted. My daughter went to a Six Flags amusement park with her three cousins and an uncle when my wife and I saw a play.

We get home around 2 p.m. on a Friday and start putting things away, including a lot of leftover perishable food squeezed into the refrigerator.

There was a thunderstorm warning for Albany County from 4:45 to 5:45 pm, and some rain did fall, but it didn’t seem so bad. So my wife drove out to the bank. A few moments later, a deluge worthy of Louis XIV fell.

It was raining the extreme rain when the umbrella and slicker are useless. Then it rained even harder so that a couple young women walking by started screaming. I ran out to see if they were being assaulted, and they were, by the skies.

The house lights flickered three or four times, then stayed on for about 10 seconds, before going out altogether. This was roughly at 6 p.m.

Interestingly, there was a notice on my phone from our power company, National Grid. “6:15 pm We detected power outages near [address]. There are currently 229 other customers also associated with this outage. We are investigating and will provide updates around progress when we get more information.” That was 229 in OUR section of the grid; there were plenty of other outages, I later learned.

“Outage Status – New Outage; Estimated Time of Restoration – Assessing.” Now I didn’t actually SEE this information until the next day, because my phone, which had died, which it does regularly. Even my daughter, who is much more diligent about these things, had no phone eventually.

My wife finally got home – she waited out the storm, wisely, and reported a tree down on Lancaster Street, a couple blocks away, and insisted that I see it. It was impressive. A large branch on a tree between two houses, almost certainly struck by lightning, toppled across the street, taking a power line with it, but barely missing someone’s car.

We got out the flashlights and the candles. My wife got pizza from the place a couple blocks away, which had power. But it was so quiet in the house I walked to the local CVS and bought batteries so we could at least listen to the radio.

I carried a flashlight because my block was dark except for the school, which must have an emergency generator. Suddenly, I started craving the same until my wife told me the process would cost us thousands, which somewhat dampened my enthusiasm.

We played UNO by candlelight. I think not having electricity actually got my daughter to go to sleep earlier than usual. But I couldn’t sleep because it was Too Darn Hot.

In the morning, I went onto the front porch to read the newspaper. Then at 9:03 a.m., I heard our air conditioner kick on. Others in the neighborhood got power overnight. National Grid said the neighborhood power was back at 12:41 p.m.

Subsequent to that, we had a couple more periods of large amounts of rain falling in a very short period of time, with the attendant flash flooding. My wife told my daughter to put away the candles, but the teen was understandably resistant.

What an interesting homecoming. Note: I said “A tree fell in Albany,” but there were quite a few, I believe.