Catbird Archives - Ramblin' with Roger

October rambling: gallimaufry

blah blah blah

Word of the day: gallimaufry- a confused jumble or medley of things.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded Maria Corina Machado the Nobel Peace Prize 2025. She will receive it for her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy.

UAlbany Alum Omar Yaghi ’85 Shares 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He was born in Amman, Jordan.

FACT CHECK: Almost Every Syllable He Utters

Noem’s shutdown propaganda isn’t flying at US airports

Medicaid Work Requirements Will Devastate People With Invisible Disabilities

Portland Frog is Back after being “Pepper Sprayed In the Vent” by ICE

“They haven’t heard of Bad Bunny, and that’s all that matters.”

Why Planes Still Have ‘No Smoking’ Signs

The Silence of the Generals

As UN Turns 80, US Continues Violation of Charter’s Limits on Use of Force

FOTUS incompetence is bolstering China—and screwing US farmers

A Stranger Shattered Their Lives. At First, They Didn’t Know Why. A family reckons with the devastation left behind after a former N.F.L. player showed up on their property.

An Ohio village moved to rename a park after its hometown baseball star, Ray Brown. Controversy followed

What the evidence tells us about Tylenol, leucovorin, and autism. The questions of whether acetaminophen can cause the condition or leucovorin can treat it have been studied to a fair degree

Hallelujah, “the linguistic Swiss Army knife of joy”

A comic about AI art

History

Twelve Failed Constitutional Amendments That Could Have Reshaped American History

Making amends: A friendship forged from the Unabomber’s violence

Announcing the Winners of the 5th Annual Keeley Schenwar Memorial Essay Prize. The prize honors the work of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated authors writing toward a more just world.

State Data Center Clearinghouse data

The NYG&B has released a significant addition to its online records: a free-to-use, enhanced index for FamilySearch’s digital collection New York, Land Records, 1630–1975. The searchable index comprises 63.5 million records for more than 32 million transactions, including deeds, mortgages, patents, and land grants.

The Great Chicago Fire of October 8-10, 1871 | Journey to American Democracy

New book – The Essential Peanuts by Charles M. Schulz: The Greatest Comic Strip of All Time by Mark Evanier

Jane Goodall, renowned chimpanzee researcher and animal advocate, dies at 91

I’ve long been convinced that, though Diane Keaton won an Oscar for Annie Hall, her performance that same year in Waiting for Mr. Goodbar (1977) sealed the deal. I’ve also caught her in The Godfather (1972), Reds (1981), Baby Boom (1987), Father of the Bride I and II (1991, 1995), The First Wives’ Club (1996), Something’s Gotta Give (2003), The Family Stone (2005), and Finding Dory (2016-voice). Oh, and every single Woody Allen movie in which she appeared. She died at age 79.

The Life and Death of the American Foodie

Kelly’s Tabular Enclosification

The Dionne Quintuplets Captivated the World During the Great Depression. But Their Fame Came at a Cost

The Thieves That Wrestled With Their Conscience and A Heroic Reason to Steal a Jacket

News consumption

The blogger DelSo writes, “I’m sorry that the country where I live is so selfish that far too many people care for no one beyond themselves.” She then discusses the “Sumud Flotilla and its attempt to deliver critical aid to Palestine,” and other topics.

An old buddy complained, “Why isn’t this story all over the news?” referring to Body slamming, teargas, and pepper balls: viral videos show Ice using extreme force in Chicago.

Astonishingly often, I read or hear, “This should be getting far more attention than it is getting”about a wide swath of topics.

Conversely, many of my friends said they hardly watch the news, or at least limit the content. “It’s too depressing!”

I absolutely agree with all of it. There’s a lot of news that goes underreported. Sarah Mullally, the bishop of London, has been appointed archbishop of Canterbury, yet this didn’t make that evening’s network news, which I watched. At the same time, the sentencing of Sean “Puffy” Combs led the broadcasts.

As noted in Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, Bari Weiss took over CBS News’s leadership, which is worrisome.

I hope people can stay informed because lots of stuff is happening, much of it distressing. At the same time, I’m hoping others will allow some grace for those who can’t bear the 24-hour, largely overwhelming, news cycle.

One suggestion: avoid clickbait, those sites you have to click on to where some presumably terrible headline has occurred.

MUSIC

Silent Eyes – Paul Simon

Sad and Beautiful World – Mavis Staples –

Goodbye Stranger – Supertramp

Piano Concerto in F major by George Gershwin

The Empty Chair – Sting

The Addams Family theme (cover)

Ophelia – The Band

Dirty Work– Steely Dan

The overture to La Cenerentola by Rossini

Coverville 1551: Bryan Ferry and Roxy Music Cover Story and 1552: The Human League Cover Story

Tom & Jerry by the Korean a cappella group, MayTree

Let Me Roll It – Paul McCartney and Wings

Desolation Row – Bob Dylan

Journey Through The Past – Neil Young

The Greatest Woman On Earth by Hans Zimmer, from the movie As Good As It Gets

Soldier Boy – The Shirelles

The Crazed Moon by Julian Anderson

The Autumn Leaves – Nat King Cole

Boogie Shoes – KC & The Sunshine Band

Save The Life Of My Child – Simon & Garfunkel (Why do people say ‘blah blah blah’?)

Carol Kaye Is Being Honored by the Rock Hall. She Doesn’t Care.

The Beatles Alpha Omega bootlegs

April rambling: Beat the Broligarchs

Rod Serling documentary

Catbird: “When I viewed it again, it looked like a heart that had been run over by a tire, which reflected my yet-unrealized reaction to what DOGE had just started. My conscious mind didn’t know yet, but my hand did. What a revelation!”

Patriotic Millionaires challenge oligarch power with sweeping economic plan: How to Beat the Broligarchs

EFF’s lawsuit against DOGE will go forward. ”Sweeping and uncontrolled access by DOGE agents who were not properly vetted or trained.”

Did you hear Canadians are wearing MAGA hats? There, they mean Make
America Go Away

Working to Preserve .Gov Websites. “Web archiving is more than just preserving history—it’s about ensuring access to information for future generations. “

Tuberculosis Is Back in the Spotlight. Does the U.S. Even Care?

Buster Keaton made a silent film AND a talkie … in 1965

Lucille Ball – ‘America Alive!’ 1978 [Interview]. from that, a viral clip: When Lucy said, “Take your hands off her, David.”

Val Kilmer, An Unclassifiable Heartthrob Who Always Had an Edge

Jay North, Child Star of ‘Dennis the Menace,’ Dies at 73. He was best known for playing the towheaded Dennis Mitchell on a sitcom that ran on CBS from 1959 to 1963, which I watched.

Goodbye Park City: Sundance Film Festival Heading to Colorado

Does ginger ale really taste better on a plane?

When You’re Better Off Skipping a Court Date and The Cat That Inherited Millions and The Man Who Takes Apostrophes Very Seriously

Until then…

Appeals Court Orders Thousands of Voters to Verify Information in Contested N.C. Election. The ruling was a win for the Republican who narrowly lost a State Supreme Court race in November. The case has tested the boundaries of post-election litigation.

His order on voter policy could disenfranchise millions, but multiple lawsuits have already sprung up to challenge it.

DOGE Is Not Cutting Government Spending

Judd Legum on Popular Information: “Musk has set a goal to cut $1 trillion annually from federal spending through DOGE. But his efforts have largely ignored the DoD, according to data compiled by the Musk Watch DOGE Tracker.”

HHS Job Cuts: Entire CDC Team Focused On Infertility And IVF Is ‘Gone’

Not to mention…

States Challenge Trump’s Effort to Dismantle Library Agency. In a lawsuit, 21 state attorneys general argued that the steep cuts to the Institute of Museum and Library Services violate the Constitution and other federal laws related to spending. Call on Congress to Protect Federal Library Funding

Smithsonian’s Chief in the Hot Seat. The executive order demanding change at the institution presents a perilous test for Lonnie G. Bunch III, its secretary, whom the White House calls a partisan Democrat.

‘It’s a shambles’: DOGE cuts bring chaos, long waits at Social Security for seniors. “Elderly and disabled people — and those who care for them — are encountering a knot of bureaucratic hurdles and service disruptions… ‘The system, it’s broken down,’ Veronica Sanchez, a 52-year-old medical practice manager in Canoga Park, said, after calling a Social Security hotline and waiting on hold for six hours.”

FOTUS Is Trying to Axe Collective Bargaining for 1 Million Federal Employees

LA Times: Regime “has issued an order demanding that all national parks remain open amid severe staffing shortages — an action that one conservation group called ‘reckless and out of touch’ as park personnel brace for millions of visitors this summer.

‘I was a British tourist trying to leave the US. Then I was detained, shackled and sent to an immigration detention centre’

Trans Athletes and Tasers & Excited Delirium: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

Another rupture: Keystone pipeline shutdown threatens fuel prices and exposes pattern of failure

Critic’s Notebook: ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ and Trump, Reunited

How Actually Crazy is This Mess?

An Experiment in Recklessness: The global trading system is only one example of the administration tearing something apart, only to reveal that it has no plan for how to replace it.

Tariffs: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

What to Learn (and not Learn) from Trump’s Tariff Blunders

Jon Stewart on The Botched Tariff Rollout & The Stock Market’s Meltdown | The Daily Show, especially from 15:35 to the end

He’s not very bright; Inside his dumb lifelong obsession with tariffs and trade deficits

Why Lutnick Displaced Musk As ‘Most Loathed’ Adviser. Lutnick: “The army of millions and millions of human beings screwing in little screws to make iPhones — that kind of thing is going to come to America.”

I don’t make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.– Will Rogers

**Former President Harry S Truman appeared on Jack Benny’s television show in 1959, when the show was filmed from the Truman Presidential Library in Independence, MO.**

Was Binghamton unavailable?

Rhode Island plays a starring role in the forthcoming Rod Serling documentary:

“The state’s Film & Television Office… touted how the Ocean State is playing a starring role in a forthcoming documentary on the life of Rod Serling, the legendary mastermind and iconic narrator behind the pioneering, 1950s and ‘60s science-fiction television series, ‘The Twilight Zone.’

“The film, authorized by Serling’s two daughters, Jodi Serling and Anne Serling, is being produced by Verdi Productions, an East Greenwich, R.I.-based production company. State officials announced… that Leonardo DiCaprio’s company, Appian Way Productions, has also joined the production…

“Although Serling, who died in 1975 at the age of 50, hailed from upstate New York, the documentarians used locations in East Greenwich, Providence, and Wakefield — the village in South Kingstown, R.I. — to help recreate moments in Serling’s life, ‘mirroring the same cinematic black and white style’ of his signature show, officials said.”

MUSIC

My Spine Is The Bassline: Dave Allen (1955-2025)

Fees, Fees, Fees – A Randy Rainbow Song Parody

Everybody Plays The Fool – The Main Ingredient

Lonely -Justin Bieber & benny blanco

Locust Laced – Sleigh Bells

Manic Monday – Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day feat. Susanna Hoffs of The Bangles

The Lady of Shallot – Loreena McKennitt

Coverville 1528: The AC/DC Cover Story IV and 1529: The Pixies Cover Story III

Girl – Beck

The Parables by Bohuslav Martinů

We Got The Beat – The Go-Go’s

Chuck Mangione’s Land Of Make Believe

Fool In The Rain – Led Zeppelin

Sergei Rachmaninoff Vocalise

The Bank of Harmony with a medley of three Hanna-Barbera theme songs

All Day and All of the Night – The Kinks

One More Night – Phil Collins

What A Fool Believes – The Doobie Brothers

William Tell Overture – Rossini

What would you change?

America Outdoors

intelligence is the ability to adapt to change. When I answered a question on Sunday Stealing recently, it was quite broadly worded. “What one event from your lifetime would you change if you could, and why?” I answered about a certain politician getting elected.

Then Dan wrote:
Let me ask you this: What event from YOUR life would you change? (Perhaps that is too intrusive and wrenching.)

I replied: “Now that is a harder question. I guess I’ll have to think on it>”

To which Dan commented:
Yes. I imagined having to answer that question for myself. Very quickly, my mind started looking for distractions.

Is anything too intrusive? I suppose so. I’ve seen items posted on social media, and I think, “Why are they posting THAT? Who wants to see THAT?” And it turns out, sometimes millions of total strangers. This is why I’ll never be a TikTok influencer, and I’m good with that. So it’s not intrusive, exactly. It’s more a modicum of good taste.

That said, I am cognizant of trying not to intrude on other people’s privacy. At least once in this blog, I wrote something about another person, and they took great offense. I made great care not to identify them by any characteristics. But they thought what I reported they had said was so wrongheaded that they stopped speaking to me. I felt terrible about it and still do, though it was close to a decade ago.

Beyond that, I thought about everything I’ve said and did or didn’t say or do. Sure there are plenty of things I regret. But in many cases, changing it would have changed the whole course of my life. If I hadn’t done X, I wouldn’t have met Y.

I’m saying no.

The great outdoors

Friend Catbird, who I’ve known for decades, wants to know:

Have you been watching “America Outdoors?” It’s on PBS and is hosted by Baratunde Thurston. I heard an interview of him on NPR (I think—or maybe it was the PBS NewsHour) about his recent book and PBS series and was intrigued.

I’m liking it! It appeals to my sense of fairness (a concept that’s been pretty scarce in our culture since its inception.

I don’t know how you feel about being outdoors … or, for that matter, what “the outdoors” means to you

But you might also enjoy this series.

No, I had not heard of it. I have tons of recorded but unwatched programming. Thank goodness JEOPARDY is off for six weeks (except reruns). It does sound intriguing.

I’m not big on the outdoors. Lions, tigers, and bears. OK, no lions and tigers, but we have had some bears even in the city of Albany in 2022. Also, bugs, and either sunburn or frostbite, both of which I have experienced.

Ash Wednesday: What is hell to you?

I opined that the old guy was in his own hell, and Catbird agreed.

I don’t think a whole lot about hell. Well, not since I was growing up with the concept constantly slipped into every third sermon I heard.

One of the things that started my long withdrawal from church in my twenties had a hell of a lot to do with what some said happened after death.

Specifically, it was the notion that everyone who didn’t accept Jesus as their savior was going to some fiery pit in the next life. That would include someone in a remote village in Nepal or person on a tiny island in the Pacific. (This is why we “needed” so many missionaries.)

Still, I think there is a “hell.” My good friend Catbird is reading “The Da Vinci Code,” which I’ve never even started. The motivation was partly because the book is on the PBS “Great American Read” list.

But it was also because some old acquaintance of Catbird’s said it was the work of the devil, which made it more enticing. My friend emailed the acquaintance to ask what event or character had informed his opinion, figuring he had never actually read the story. He replied that Catbird was going to hell and that his words were a warning.

Catbird shared the opinion that both heaven and hell are what one chooses to make of one’s circumstances. A life-altering experience has deeply informed my friend that death is nothing to fear.

I opined that the old guy was in his own hell, and Catbird agreed. And from appearances, it seems “entirely self-inflicted… and possibly addictive.” Catbird heard on the radio about the door to hell being locked from the inside and thought that it applied especially well to him.

So what is hell to you? Is it a physical place after we leave this mortal coil? Is it something else? Does it not exist at all? Maybe you’re hedging your bet.

This Lenten discussion immediately brought to mind a song written by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong: You Make Your Own Heaven And Hell Right Here On Earth, recorded by The Temptations and Undisputed Truth.