You want to talk about REAL religious persecution…

Open Door USA has a map where Christians are being threatened in this world today. Please note that the United States is NOT listed.

kristallnachtWatching part 5 of the Ken Burns masterpiece on The Roosevelts last month, I saw a brief mention of those terrible events of November 9-10, 1938, Kristallnacht, the “Night of Broken Glass” “the wave of violent anti-Jewish pogroms… throughout Germany, annexed Austria, and in areas of the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia recently occupied by German troops.”

Not an hour later, I was watching the CBS Evening News, and there was a report about anti-Semitism being on the rise in Europe again: “The memories of Jewish persecution — of the November 1938 Kristallnacht when Jewish institutions were destroyed — are burned into German memory. Frankfurt’s main synagogue, badly damaged that night, is one of those now under armed guard.”

The ethnic minority in Iraq called the Yazidi who was faced with elimination by ISIL, or ISIS this past summer.

Open Door USA has a map where Christians are being threatened today, including much of Asia and northern Africa. Please note that the United States is NOT listed.

I mention this preemptively to say: Americans, there may be a war on Christians in this world, but it ain’t happening here. Let me make it crystal clear: people wishing you “happy holidays” on December 24 does NOT qualify as religious persecution.

If I Had a Ballot for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Last year, three of my picks, Linda Ronstadt, Peter Gabriel, and Hall and Oates actually got into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame,, so I’ll put the other two on this year’s ballot.

east-west.bbbI realize more and more each year how meaningless the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is. When I look at the list of artists NOT in it (Chicago, Moody Blues, Todd Rundgren, Yes, to name a few), I sigh.

Still, I play the game, because it’s fun for me.

Cleveland (October 9, 2014) — The nominees for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2015 are:

The Paul Butterfield Blues Band
Chic
Green Day
Joan Jett & the Blackhearts
Kraftwerk
The Marvelettes
N.W.A.
Nine Inch Nails
Lou Reed
The Smiths
The Spinners
Sting
Stevie Ray Vaughan
War
Bill Withers

To be eligible for nomination, an individual artist or band must have released its first single or album at least 25 years prior to the year of nomination. The 2015 nominees had to release their first recording no later than 1989.

Ballots will be sent to an international voting body of more than 700 artists, historians and members of the music industry.

Last year, three of my picks, Linda Ronstadt, Peter Gabriel, and Hall and Oates actually got in, so I’ll put the other two on this year’s ballot:

Paul Butterfield Blues Band, whose three Bs (Butterfield, Mike Bloomfield, Elvin Bishop) were also individually important in rock. East-West, from 1966, is one of my favorite albums. Here are the two instrumentals, Work Song and the title cut.
Chic, its sound is still relevant, though if Nile Rodgers got in as a non-performer (songwriter/producer), I could accept that.

Plus:
Joan Jett & the Blackhearts – because I have a bias for women rockers.
The Marvelettes – …and “girl groups”.
*The Spinners – because I LOVE the Spinners.

I dismissed, at least for the time being, both Lou Reed and Sting, because their groups Velvet Underground and The Police, respectively, are in the hall.

This is Stevie Ray Vaughan’s first year of eligibility, and I DO love his music; I hope he does get in, and he may this year.
Green Day has a couple of albums I like. And I love their NAME. Maybe down the road.
I know I SHOULD put Kraftwerk on the list; very important group.
My ignorance of the music of Nine Inch Nails is inexplicable, but there it is.
As I wrote last year, “I know N.W.A. is massively influential, despite its limited output, but not feeling it yet.”
If I had a sixth vote, or if the Chic folk get in as non-performers and I had another selection, it might well be for The Smiths.
Pretty sure I supported War’s induction before. With a seventh vote, would pick them.
Bill Withers had some great songs, but not enough for me to pick.

Which five artists would YOU vote for?

Cheaper pizza

The Daughter is doing order of operations at school.

General problem 2I went to the local pizzeria on a recent Saturday night. The cost was $10.50; I gave the cashier a $20 bill and a $1 bill. But he gave me back the dollar bill, and then gave me change for the $20, which was $9.50.

As it turned out, they were out of five-dollar bills, so he was going to give me nine one-dollar bills and 50 cents. Seeing this, the owner yelled, “Just charge him [me] ten bucks.” The clerk says, “But I’ve already closed the register.” The owner overrides the register to reopen it, puts back the $9.50 and gives me a $10 bill.

Of course, I gave the clerk $21 in the first place so he would not have to give me a bunch of ones. If you’ve ever been in retail, you know that you don’t want to give away ones if you can help it, and certainly not nine of them. I knew that, the owner knew that, the clerk, not so much.
***
For some reason, I’m reminded by a story from long ago, where a guy I knew wanted to buy milk and a newspaper. At the time the milk was 99 cents and the newspaper, 35 cents. But the register wasn’t working properly, and couldn’t give the total, though it could give change. The problem is that the clerk couldn’t figure out the change from $2, because he didn’t know the total of the purchase.

The guy tried to explain: “99 cents is a penny less than a dollar, so it’s $1.34. These are non-taxable, so it’s $2 minus $1.34 is 66 cents.” This was too complicated.

I worry that when the computers all go down, no one will know how to add and subtract, never mind do multiplication and division.
***
gas_prices I was watching the NBC Nightly News and saw this story: Gas Prices Drop to Lowest Level in Nearly Four Years, using the picture. I had to write to them.

“The average price drop is NOT 30% [as Brian Williams said], it’s 30 CENTS, as the graphic showed, from $3.34 to $3.04,” I noted. If it had been 30%, the drop would be about $1.
***
The Daughter is doing the order of operations at school. At a website quaintly called Math is Fun, it reminded me that the order in which one does math problems is:
P
Parentheses first
E
Exponents (i.e. Powers and Square Roots, etc.)
MD
Multiplication and Division (left-to-right)
AS
Addition and Subtraction (left-to-right)

I’ll admit to forgetting where the exponents fit, exactly.

So what is the answer to the item posted above?

Ten favorite songs

There’s some video out there of current women lipsynching to this song, as though the radical nature of the message from a half century ago wasn’t self-evident.

jackbruceRecently my friend Doug forwarded an interesting challenge to pick my ten favorite songs without repeating a single band or artist. He wrote:
“Too challenging, for the paring down process of what makes any list becomes about as instinctive as picking a Grammy (et al) winner — and I genuinely dislike that ‘process’. But, it is about music, and about the sharing thereof, and I love a good challenge.”

I don’t worry so much, because this is not a definitive list, THE ten songs because that would be simply impossible for me. Whatever my 10 songs are likely will be different the next time I compiled the list, based in part on what I’ve been listening to.

And my FAVORITE by an artist is often fairly fluid as well. In other words, I couldn’t allow myself to be so tied down when mood and events can have such an impact.

1. White Room – Cream. This choice was clearly influenced by the recent death of vocalist/bassist Jack Bruce. But when I do my top 10 songs featuring Eric Clapton next year, this song may, or may not, be #1.

2. You Don’t Own Me – Lesley Gore. There’s some video out there of current women lipsynching to this song, as though the radical nature of the message from a half-century ago wasn’t self-evident.

3. Eight Days a Week – The Beatles. The first song that Paul McCartney played in Albany, NY on July 7, 2014, an event that made The Daughter squeal with excitement.

4. I Am A Man Of Constant Sorrow – Soggy Bottom Boys. From the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack. The Wife and I saw Alison Krauss in 2003 (or 2002) in Albany, and loved singer Dan Tyminski’s story about his wife’s reaction when his voice came from George Clooney’s movie lips.

5. Mercy Mercy Mercy – the Buckinghams. There are better versions of this song, notably by Cannonball Adderly, but this is the first version I knew.

6. Run For A Long Time – Bill Landford & The Landfordaires. This 1943 “version of the traditional folk song ‘God’s Gonna Cut You Down’… [was] later sampled by Moby for ‘Run On’, on ‘Play’ CD.” Also covered by Johnny Cash, Tom Jones, the Blind Boys of Alabama, and MANY others.

7. Time Has Come Today – The Chambers Brothers. I AM psychedelicized.

8. Cat Food – King Crimson. I feed my cats most mornings and many evenings. This song, from an album I have on vinyl, has been popping into my head recently.

9. Logical Song – Supertramp. As true now as when I first heard it three and a half decades ago.

10. April in Paris – Count Basie. Love the “Pop Goes the Weasel” bridge, and “one more, once.”

There were a couple of other songs I considered, but either couldn’t find a video (e.g., I Am Waiting – Ollabelle), or the right version.

MOVIE REVIEW: Kill the Messenger

In Kill the Messenger, Gary Webb’s big story slowly begins to unravel, due in no small effort of the rivals of the Mercury News, such as The New York Times, Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post, to smear him.

jeremy-renner-kill-the-messenger-posterThe cover story of the October 9, 2014 issue of Metroland, the “Capitol Region’s Alternative Newsweekly,” was Return of the Messenger, about how a new film starring Jeremy Renner will serve as a belated vindication of an investigative journalist. The movie starts with clips of US Presidents from Lyndon Johnson to Ronald Reagan extolling the virtue of fighting the scourge of illegal drugs.

“Kill the Messenger… is the true story of Sacramento-based investigative reporter Gary Webb, who earned both acclaim and notoriety for his 1996 San Jose Mercury News series that revealed the CIA had turned a blind eye to the U.S.-backed Nicaraguan Contras trafficking crack cocaine in South Central Los Angeles and elsewhere in urban America in the 1980s. One of the first-ever newspaper investigations to be published on the Internet, Webb’s story gained a massive readership and stirred up a firestorm of controversy and repudiation.”

The first part of the movie was like “All the President’s Men,” the movie about the Watergate affair that toppled the presidency of Richard Nixon, but on steroids, with hard-working Webb going out on a limb to nail this story. But his big story slowly begins to unravel, due in no small effort of the rivals of the Mercury News, such as The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and The Washington Post, to smear Webb, thus undermining the narrative.

This is an engaging story, but depressing in terms of both the government’s actions and the media’s complacency. Ben Bradlee, the executive editor of The Washington Post from 1968 to 1991, who died recently, backed his reporters, Bob Woodward, and Carl Bernstein when they investigated Watergate; the San Jose Mercury News eventually was less supportive of their reporter. The Washington Post’s actions in 1972 through 1974 were courageous and served the country well; the Washington Post of 1996, at least in regard to this story, was cowardly and petty.

At least some of the less positive reviews (75% positive on Rotten Tomatoes) suggest this movie also takes some liberties with the facts. This MAY be true – I know not – but it’s also possible, as The Myth of the Free Press by Chris Hedges suggests, that “these [CONTINUING!] attacks are an act of self-justification… an attempt by the mass media to mask the collaboration between themselves and the power elite.” In any case, the overarching narrative is probably accurate. Others suggest that the ending is unsatisfying; so it was, but that’s the way it really played out.

The Wife and I, who saw it on a recent Sunday afternoon at the Spectrum Theatre in Albany, thought it was well worth our time.

Ramblin' with Roger
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