February rambling: Incompetence Opera

Gun violence dashboard. Every Building on Every Block: NYC property tax photos from the 1930s

red green lightAs the Climate Collapses, We Ask: “How Then Shall We Live?”

Modern Weather Forecasts Are Stunningly Accurate

Greenpeace ships set sail to tell the global story of plastic pollution

Gun violence dashboard

Weekly Sift: A Fishy Emergency Threatens the Republic

Grammar as Resistance

United Methodist Church voted to toughen its teachings against homosexuality, same-sex marriage, and LGBT clergy. It must now decide whether it will stay together

The case for capping all prison sentences at 20 years

Melinda and Bill Gates’s Annual Letter discussing surprises from toilets to sexist data to textbooks

It’s illegal to drive your car covered in snow and ice in New York State

Every Building on Every Block: NYC property tax photos from the 1930s

It’s Impossible to Follow a Conversation on Twitter

This week with John Oliver:Brexit III

New York’s Rejection of Amazon Isn’t Anti-Tech, It’s Pro-People

Deepfake: A Brief History of Unreliable Images

FTC Details Big Jump in Losses, Complaints about Romance Scams

Isaac Newton’s Secret Religious Writings and Apocalyptic Prediction

Ken Levine podcast: TV in the age of Ageism

The original obituary of Frederick Douglass

Meet the Safecracker of Last Resort

What one wants from hotel showers

Europeans Keep Finding Ancient Dodecahedrons in the Dirt

The 25 Most Influential Movie Scenes of the Past 25 Years

Stanley Donen, co-director of ‘Singin’ in the Rain,’ dies at 94

Nurses from the Opening Credits of the TV show MASH

The Forgotten Story of the American Troops Who Got Caught Up in the Russian Civil War

For decades, the only thing staving off a worldwide Socialist revolution was a grouchy librarian

Now I Know: When Sears Sold Homes by Mail and Why The $1 Bill Doesn’t Change and When Doing the Math Meant Breaking the Law and How to Recycle Thousands of Tons of Military-Grade Metal

Bella’s journey ends

The canine section: He finished the race, didn’t he? and Good dog

Greg Burgas: More comics lists we can argue about!

Movie trailers for the movies Yesterday (2019), about Beatles music, and Who Is Arthur Chu?,, the sometimes hated JEOPARDY champion

The Most Bizarre Stock Photos I Could Find Brought to Life by Your Captions

MUSIC

The Dunning-Kruger Song, from The Incompetence Opera

Why -Tracy Chapman (Live 1990)

SO CUTE – Aubrey Logan

I Wanna Be a Lifeguard – Scud Lightning

(Gimme Some of That) Ol’ Atonal Music – Merle Hazard

No or No – Twice

The Ball Game – Sister Wynona Carr

Take On Me – Weezer

Coverville 1250: Cover Stories for Robert Palmer and Bobby Brown and 1251: Gerry Goffin Cover Story and 1252: The Chinese Zodiac of Cover Songs

One Hundred Ways – James Ingram

Night and Day – Marc Hunter

Oh, Man – Jain

Orpheus in the Underworld overture – Jacques Offenbach

Theme from The Muppet Show, a cappella rendition – Mr Dooves

You Won’t Bring Me Down – Sina

Private Eyes – Sleeping At Last

Black Velvet Band – Irish Rovers

B.E.R. – The Night Begins To Shine

Chuck Miller: The times that I met Peter Tork

Who Do I Side With 2020 Presidential quiz

Pete Buttigieg is the mayor of South Bend Indiana, Mike Pence’s state. I had barely heard of him, yet he’s up at the top of my leader board. Who the heck is he?

I-Side-With-Feb-2019-There is a political quiz that Arthur took called Who Do I Side With? It contains questions on a wealth of issues from national security to education and health care.

If YOU should decide to fill it out, consider clicking on the “other stances” each time in order to get more nuanced responses. I filled this out in June 2016, and – SURPRISE – Bernie Sanders was my pick, with 92%, followed by Hillary Clinton at 68% and Jeb Bush at 28%.

Note that the guy who ultimately won the election isn’t even on the matrix, as he had just announced his candidacy that month.

You’ll see that virtually all the declared candidates on the Democratic side fare about the same with me. In other words, I REALLY don’t care yet.

That said:

Pete Buttigieg – he’s the mayor of South Bend Indiana, Mike Pence’s state. I had barely heard of him, yet he’s up at the top of my leader board. Who the heck is he? Arthur (oh, HIM again) needed to find out. Here’s an article from his hometown paper. There was a compelling interview on ABC News’ This Week earlier in February that I can’t access presently, but he was very impressive.

Beto O’Rourke – has a recently defeated candidate ever gotten more traction than he?

Kamala Harris – the US Senator from California sat down with an extended interview with Trevor Noah, and I found her impressive; you may not be able access it overseas. The noise about whether she’s black enough annoys me greatly.

Elizabeth Warren – she’s a loyal Democrat and Not a Socialist, But She Still Makes Wall Street Squirm

Bernie Sanders – Wall Street likes Biden, Booker, Harris, Gillibrand, and Beto. Guess who they hate? Sanders and Warren. All the rest is commentary.

BTW, the graphic that’s included Arthur kindly designed for me in Photoshop because I know where my skills lie, and it is assuredly NOT in graphic design. Gracias, amigo.

January rambling #2: Robert Mueller action figure

Code Switch podcast from NPR: Intrigue At The Census Bureau

Three Holocaust survivors open up about the rising tide of anti-semitism

What’s Behind Our Obsession With Political ‘Likability’

Here’s the Robert Mueller action figure you’ve been waiting for

Weekly Sift: The End of the Shutdown and Extortion Tactics Have No Place in American Democracy

Research suggests his election has been detrimental to many Americans’ mental health

The Religious Left Is Finding Its Voice

Code Switch podcast from NPR: Intrigue At The Census Bureau (January 24, 2019)

Many Voters Think He’s a Self-Made Man. What Happens When You Tell Them Otherwise?

Impeach him

The World Economy Runs on GPS. It Needs a Backup Plan

The economy is great for billionaires, not for working people

Weekly Sift: My Wife’s Expensive Cancer Drug

Millions of Americans Flood Into Mexico for Health Care

My life after a heart attack at 38

In Newly-Found Audio, Bayard Rustin Says Coming Out ‘Was An Absolute Necessity’

Misty Copeland, Calvin Royal III and the rarity of a black couple dancing lead roles

Former Northwestern PhD student accused of stealing his own car settles with Evanston

Civility - #drawninpowerpoint
Civility: #drawninpowerpoint – original comics, published occasionally by Craig Froehle. Creative Commons license “Attribution-NonCommercial”

Geographical dystopiary

RPI Model Railroad Club Getting Derailed?

The Christmas watch

A Girl Is Born

A Deadly Tsunami Of Molasses In Boston’s North End (1919)

How to rescue your car from two feet of snowbank

A profile of Mr. Eric Idle

Comic book artist George Perez retires; I hired him once, for the FantaCo chronicles for the Fantastic Four

Considering the new DC Universe streaming channel

Alan Alda Just Wants to Have a Good Conversation

Fallacies of composition and division

Now I Know: 150 Years After the Civil War, They’re Still Paying the Bills and How Tesla’s Death Ray Killed a Bill and The Intentionally Bad Novel That Became a Best Seller and Harry Potter and the Uniform of Temporal Distortion and The Man Who Inched Away at History

Becoming a digital near-native. Or not

MUSIC

Shed a Little Light – The Maccabeats and Naturally 7

Feed the Birds – Richard Sherman

Loving You With My Eyes – The Starland Vocal Band

Lola – Lake Street Dive

I Want You Back – Twice

Rimsky-Korsakov’s Cariccio Espagnol with the New York Philharmonic conducted by Leonard Bernstein

Sweet Child O’ Mine – Scary Pockets

Hazy Shade of Winter – Gerard Way, featuring Ray Toro

Running Up That Hill – Candy Says & Marc Canham

Coverville: 1248: Cover Stories for the Yellow Submarine 50th and Crash Test Dummies and 1249: Covering the 2019 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Inductees

K-Chuck Radio: Our Native Brothers and Sisters

Grammy-winning soul legend James Ingram dead at age 66

Land of Confusion – Genesis

The economics of streaming is making songs shorter

U.S. Vinyl Album Sales Grew 15% in 2018, Led by the Beatles, Pink Floyd, David Bowie & Panic! at the Disco

January rambling: quotidian stupidity

How Much of the Internet Is Fake? Turns Out, a Lot of It, Actually

The Impact of Climate Change on Language Loss

NBC’s Meet the Press devotes the entire show to climate change with no time for deniers

Saving American Democracy

Are powerful women likable?

A double diagnosis — cancer while poor

NOW I AM

Chronic lying and self-contempt

Why He Reigns as King Cyrus

He Is the Damn Emergency; Post-Speech

The wall speech v. the prediction; it is not about the wall

He Was Never Vetted

Celibacy isn’t the cause of the church sex-abuse crisis; the priesthood is

Comic book artist Batton Lash, October 29, 1953 – January 12, 2019

Former Yankees Starter, Pitching Coach Mel Stottlemyre Dies at 77 – I was there at the Stadium when they retired his number

Broadway legend Carol Channing dies at 97

Bob Einstein, R.I.P.

Arthur answers my questions about blogging stuff and gay conversion therapy and current gay issues and his parents

The Crimson Permanent Assurance (Monty Python’s)

Everyday smartness is definitely no match for quotidian stupidity

On books, and joy, and hoarding, and having too many books…

I Used to Write for Sports Illustrated. Now I Deliver Packages for Amazon

After 30 years, Elisa Streeter has retired from WTEN-TV 10 in Albany

Every The Dick Van Dyke Show Episode, Ranked

Review time! with ‘Planet of the Apes Visionaries’

Lady Cop: A 70s Comic that Tried (and Failed)

Disgusting Food Museum opens

What is Glitter?

Cookie Monster in the UK, interview by Melissa Nathoo and Cookie Monster visits the Ellen show

Now I Know: The Dog With Strings Attached and Meet Kelly, The Really Smart Dolphin and The Avengers Burial Ground and Why You Can’t Make a Phone Call with a Calculator and How to Beat Traffic in Moscow

11 foot 8 bridge

When teens discover jazz
Archie Comics

2018/2019

In review

The Story that Really Mattered

Bringing out the dead

fillyjonk’s year

The Worst Political Predictions

35 years ago, Isaac Asimov was asked to predict the world of 2019

Dave Barry: What made 2018 so awful? A month-by-month look at the most outrageous highlights

MUSIC

Hope Is A Dangerous Thing For A Woman Like Me To Have – But I Have It – Lana Del Rey, and other songs

K-Chuck Radio: Sail on, Captain… (Daryl Dragon)

Emerson, Lake & Palmer – Fanfare For The Common Man (complete)

Winter Melody – Donna Summer

Getting Better – MonaLisa Twins

All Along The Watchtower – Playing For Change

Loving You Today – Amy Barlow

Downtown – Saw Doctors with Petula Clark

Lawyers, Guns and Money – Warren Zevon

Don’t Turn Away – Hollie Sue

Some People, from the Broadway show Gypsy, performed by several big stars

Safety Dance – Men Without Hats

Overture to Johann Strauss’s operetta The Gypsy Baron – Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra

22 Musicals In 12 Minutes w/ Lin Manuel Miranda, Emily Blunt, and James Corden

Year Of The Cat – Al Stewart

Nature Boy: Eden Ahbez and Annie Haslam and Sun Ra

Coverville: 1246: Cover Stories for Marilyn Manson and Foo Fighters and 1247: Cover Stories for Susanna Hoffs and Sade

Dawn over the Land – Night Breeze

I Just Want to Be a Star – Nunsense

Always Look on the Bright Side of Life – Sonny Vande Putte

Meow Mix – cats at a rave

Baby Shark went viral and hit the Billboard Hot 100

How one designer created the “look” of jazz

The End of Owning Music: How CDs and Downloads Died

Review time! with ‘Crossroad Blues’

December rambling #2: how to do sanctuary

Is tech ruining the way we use exclamation points?!

onam.empireOligarchy Is Destroying Our Society and the Planet

Free the Free Press from Wall Street Plunderers

The main problem with privatization is that it tends to socialize risk and privatize profits

Moments of madness: Freud’s thoughts on human nature resonate today

Low nurse staffing levels directly linked to higher patient mortality, study finds

The politics of ’12 Angry Men’ has never really left us and probably never will

The Postal Inspector Who Took Down America’s First Organized Crime Ring

Pew’s ‘striking findings’ from 2018

150 Minutes of Hell

Can Compassion Be Taught?

Now this is how you do sanctuary right

Walter Ayres: New Hope Budget

My friend and former pastor Donna Elia: Woman of the cloth, woman of the belt

Being Mortal review – a surgeon’s view of how we should end our days

Morrie Turner: Wee Pals, Kid Power

Curios from the Outer Rim: SUPERMAN at 40

Is tech ruining the way we use exclamation points?!

In Vermont, a small-town feud leads to a big middle finger (literally)

A simple, free way to pass your permit test; the New York State version

A few of the 700some stories about the street names of Albany

The annual obit reel from Turner Classic Movies

Word of the year? listen or risk

The Internet has screwed up Christmas shopping

Holiday weight gain: Can it be avoided? Probably not

Now I Know: The Starbucks That Never Gets Your Name Wrong and Rodentia Intelligencia and A Crowd-Pleasing Side Dish and The Transatlantic Battery Bunny Battle and Is a Burrito (Legally) a Sandwich?

A woman tricked her dad by replacing Ferrero Rocher chocolates with chocolate-covered brussels sprouts

Chuck Miller: Photos of 2018

Dustbury notes my Advent devotional

Arthur answers my questions about where to live and religion and his likes

WHICH SIDE IS HE ON?

Russia picked him and ran him for President, former Israeli intelligence officer says

No, These Tariffs Have Not Been Good for America

He says: Give Me a Wall or I’ll Engineer a Recession

He took credit for a growing economy – Now what?

Shutdown halts civil court cases — including those against him

Regime Suggests Unpaid Federal Workers Do Odd Jobs to Cover Rent

Daughter of the podiatrist who helped defer him from Vietnam says ‘bone spurs’ were a lie

Trials of Individual-1: a scorecard

The E.P.A. proposed new rules for assessing pollution that would make it easier for power plants to release mercury and other toxic substances

Here’s how his environmental record is hurting communities worldwide

Is this any way to run a superpower?

Back when (a) he was just an annoying, self-promoting business tycoon and (b) Jon Stewart manned the desk at The Daily Show

MUSIC

Who Cares – Paul McCartney, video with Emma Stone

Coverville Countdown: The 40 Greatest Covers of 2018, Part One and Part Two

I’ll Be Seeing You – Nancy Wilson

Crimson and Clover – Prince

Love Always Wins – Hande Yener

Jerusalem – Emerson, Lake & Palmer

Bourée – Jethro Tull

“The Chipmunk Song” Turns 60: Secrets of a Holiday Novelty Smash

Ramblin' with Roger
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