April rambling: shadow docket

1950 Census

John Roberts joins dissent blasting extremist Supreme Court conservatives for abusing the shadow docket

Ginni Thomas Debacle Is a Warning That Trumpism Lives On in the Halls of Power

Battle Against School Segregation in New Jersey

Weekly Sift: Elon and Twitter; will Elon regret the purchase?

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver:  Police Interrogations and
Data Brokers and Truckers and Harm Reduction

Florida Eliminates Disney’s Special District

He Was an Ex-FBI Serial Killer Profiler. Then His Lies Caught Up With Him

Viewers Feel Overwhelmed by Too Many Choices, Nielsen Survey Finds and What Happens When an Industry Becomes a Squid Game and Behind the Scenes of CNN+’S Stunning Fall

Lily Tomlin THR interview

Gilbert Gottfried, Comedian, ‘Aladdin’ Star Dies at 67 from a   condition called myotonic dystrophy. In the documentary called Life, Animated (2016), about a child who learned to communicate by watching Disney films, the young man Owen had a club and he invited Gilbert to one of their events. Gilbert was such a mensch.

Bobby Rydell, Pop Singer, ‘Bye Bye Birdie’ Actor, Dies at 79

Robert Morse, Two-Time Tony Winner, and ‘Mad Men’  Star, Dies at 90

Bruce Willis’ Aphasia

How Colorblind NHL Players See The Game

Comics For Ukraine

The Most Beloved Comic? How and Why Calvin and Hobbes Disappeared

The (Edited) Latecomer’s Guide to Crypto

Chuck Miller changes his name

Human connections light up This Brilliant Darkness by Jeff Sharlet

Making popcorn

The remarkable brain of a carpet cleaner who speaks 24 languages

How Come People Say ‘How Come’?

A poem about libraries

A puzzler from Presh Talwalkar.

That Old Twitchy Feeling – linkage to linkage

Information, please

The Census Is Broken. Can AI Fix It?

Fertility Rates: Declined for Younger Women, Increased for Older Women

Official 1950 Census Website

How Many Humans Have Ever Lived?

State Tax Collections per Capita, Fiscal Year 2020

Maps of Albany

Now I Know

Indiana Jones and the Porcelain Throne? and When Belgium Flipped the Coin at France and We Shouldn’t Forget Ignaz Semmelweis and Why Doctors Wear Green (or Blue) Scrubs and The Walls (and Book) That Can Kill You and The $64,000 Fake New York City Tourist and Why You Shouldn’t Hold in a Sneeze and An Initial Reaction to Disaster Relief?

MUSIC

Rebecca Jade was gearing up for San Diego Music Awards performance; she won two awards, Best Video; and Best R and B, Funk, or Soul Song for What’s It Gonna Be.

Possibly Neil Diamond’s most significant Sweet Caroline performance, Fenway Park in Boston, April 20, 2013.

Elmer Bernstein at 100

Rest in peace, C.W. McCall

Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor by Sergei Rachmaninoff, performed by Khatia Buniatishvili

Good Day Sunshine – MonaLisa Twins

Three Visions by William Grant Still 

Town Of Tuxley Toymaker

Le Palais Hante by Florent Schmitt.

Coverville:  1396 – Tribute to Foo Fighters’ Taylor Hawkins and 
1397 – The Elton John Cover Story IV and 1398 – The Hollies Cover Story II

Appalachian Spring by Aaron Copland 

Twelve cellists from the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra play the theme from The Pink Panther

 The Crown of India by Edward Elgar

Introverting – The Holderness Family

Amadeus clip

All By Myself – Eric Carmen

John Denver

K-Chuck Radio: You mean they’re not related?

 

February rambling: Black Present

Sojourner Truth; Kyiv; Colorado isn’t a rectangle

Cosmic Perspective

Walking the World: Kyiv. In a beautiful no man’s land between Russia and the US

Tennessee Pastor Hosts Massive Book-Burning At His Church and McMinn County’s Maus Problem

Trump Makes It Clear He’d Be an Out and Out Dictator If Reelected in 2024

When the Dying COVID Patient Is 23

The New Orleans funeral reminds us that grief is a burden that can be shared

It’s Coming! The 1950 United States Federal Census. Share with family and friends and help ensure their family’s records are accurate and complete.

A Quarter of Children in US Lived With At Least One Foreign-Born Parent

What Kind of Writer Accuses Libraries of Stealing? A wrangle on the topic of Controlled Digital Lending.

Global Ranking of Free Wifi Hot Spots in 2022

Colorado is a rectangle? Think again.

Cartoon: candy polyamory

The secret MVP of sports? The port-a-potty

Mary Tyler Moore Show Reunion – Oprah 2008

Black History

The National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum (NAHOF) Black History Matters 2022 program

Building Albany’s Free Black Community in the Early 1800s

State Archives find historic court case of Sojourner Truth; Documents concerning Truth’s 1828 fight for her son

Tom Cotton Says Slavery Not About White Supremacy But Was A Necessary Evil

Reconstruction: Why Students Need to Learn and Teach the Truth

Rightwing Anti-CRT Network

Black Present

How Racism, Segregation, and Redlining Has Widened the Homeownership Gap

The possibility of first Black woman SCOTUS nominee prompts misogynoirist pushback

Black Health and Wellness

Understanding mental health issues among Black Teens

Cross-country exploration of Black history

Racism in the NFL

Breaking Boundaries in Black Tennis

Minor League Baseball adds to inclusion efforts with The Nine

Whoopi was Wrong and Wronged

Now I Know

A Different Type of Presidential Mudslinging and The Loch Ness Moose-ster? and The Very Long Novel That Saved a Man’s Sanity and The Green Vines Grow All Around

Music
control_group_2x
From https://xkcd.com/2576/ This is absolutely why I never learned the Macarena.

Mingus Ah Um album – Charles Mingus, plus a nice Howard Hesseman story

Music honoring and celebrating the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Free Man In Paris – Peter Sprague with Pam Pendrell on vocals

Bylina by Vasily Kalinnikov

The Tango: Vaccine – Randy Rainbow

Mozart: Sinfonia concertante for violin, viola, and chamber orchestra, K. 364.

Bone Music: Forbidden Soviet Records Made From Used X-Ray Films

Meat Loaf – Coverville 1389: Tribute Mini-Episode and a Keef cartoon 

Nachtschwaermer by Carl Michael Ziehrer

K-Chuck Radio: Three songs with hidden curse words (that still get played on the radio)

How John Stamos Came to Record ‘Alone’ Before Heart Did

January rambling: Room at the Table

Writing While Black

sunshield_2x
From https://xkcd.com/2564/

The 2022 Edelman Trust Barometer

Why the Tonga Eruption Was So Violent

A cold case team believes it has solved the mystery of who may have betrayed Anne Frank

One Year Later (Jan 6)

Writing While Black Under Scrutiny

Peter M. Pryor, the trailblazing Black civil rights lawyer, dies at 95

Hockey jersey is retired, 64 years after Willie O’Ree broke the NHL color barrier

Rachel Balkovec latest in a line of women shattering baseball’s barriers

Why Turkey Is Now Türkiye

How do you pronounce Kyiv, anyway? 

Service Providers: Are you Making This Big Sales Tax Mistake?

How Early Should You Get to the Airport, Really?

Can You Actually Work on Amtrak’s Free Wi-Fi?

54 years ago, a computer programmer fixed a massive bug — and created an existential crisis

A review of Pieced Together, the current exhibition at the Pine Hills Branch of the Albany Public Library,

Kelly’s Hawaiian adventures

Woody Allen’s ‘A Rainy Day In New York’ Secures Surprise Theatrical Release in China

Daniel Radcliffe to Play “Weird Al” Yankovic in Biopic

The 40th anniversary of Destroyer Duck, which I bought at the time

How Wordle Became The Internet’s Omicron Pastime

2021 Domain Insights and Trends

Flashlights 

Now I Know:  The Origins of the Football Huddle and When Fake Burps Have Real Consequences and  The Crime Tip from a Non-Tip at the Tip of the Nation and But The Cat Came Back and The “You Should Retire” Law of 1882

RIP

Louie Anderson, RIP. His first appearance on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson 

Ralph Emery, Country Music Broadcaster, Dies at 88

Dwayne Hickman, Star of ‘The Many Lives of Dobie Gillis,’ Dies at 87

Howard Hesseman, Dr. Johnny Fever on ‘WKRP in Cincinnati,’ Dies at 81

Kay Olin Johnson, who has been actively involved with the Olin Family Society (my MIL’s lineage) forever, passed away 1/22, just a week after attending the latest OFS council meeting, which I attended. I was extremely fond of her. She was a remarkable lady who will be sorely missed. She was mentioned at least once in this blog, here

Betty White -This is Your Life (1987)

NY Governor Kathy Hochul announced flags on state buildings would be flown at half-staff in honor of fallen New York Police Officers Jason Rivera and Wilbert Mora. Flags were to be lowered to half-staff at sunrise on Jan. 28, the day of Officer Rivera’s funeral service, and returned to full-staff at sunset on Feb. 2, following Officer Mora’s funeral service.

Virtual DC Feb 7 2022

COVID

Seriously, Upgrade Your Face Mask

The Biden admin has launched a phone line for Americans to order four free COVID  tests per household, expanding availability to Americans who may not have internet access: 1-800-232-0233.

Fear of COVID Is Keeping the Vaxxed Out of the Workforce

It is killing Trump supporters by the hundreds each day

MUSIC

Room at the Table – Carrie Newcomer 

Tonight You Belong To Me – MonaLisa Twins

Theatrical Rock and Meat Loaf

Dragons – Drew Holcomb and the Neighbors

The Family Madrigal – Stephanie Beatriz, Olga Merediz from Encanto 

Academic Festival Overture by Brahms

You Can Call Me Al – Peter Sprague

Coverville 1387: Cover Stories for Kings of Leon and Prefab Sprout and a Tribute to Ronnie Spector and 1388: The 30th Anniversary Tribute to Nevermind at #1

Take On Me – a-ha (MTV Unplugged, 2017)

Bad Wolves – Rebecca Jade featuring Jason Mraz, Miki Vale, and Veronica May was Song Of The Year at the San Diego Music Awards

Sedition – Randy Rainbow (2021)

Abhor-Rent: 525,600 Minutes Since The Insurrection from
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert

Death Don’t Have No Mercy – Grateful Dead

Miracle and Wonder: Paul Simon – Audiobook by Malcolm Gladwell (Chapter 1 – The Mystery)

January rambling: The lips move, but not much else

Put Down the Duckie

climbing-helmets-486644_1280Agreeing with Karl Rove

Rep. Jamie Raskin On Surviving A Double Blow of Tragedy and Finding the Strength to Lead

The “Gaslighting” of Jan. 6: TV News Grapples With Capitol Riot a Year Later

Examining mental health issues among black men – A Guide To Freedom

Letting Go: Wisdom From Our Grief

The quits rate, the percentage of resignations relative to total employment is the highest on record

How to help you stop being so late (or at least make you more honest about it)

Lowell, MA Mayor Sokhary Chau is the first Cambodian American mayor in the nation

Groundbreaking of the Maternal Center of Excellence in Kono, Sierra Leone

Should We Ban Jingle Bells?

MCU’s Hawkeye and a Theology of Disability

Dick Cavett interviewing Mel Brooks. The Bill Cullen story

The NYS Thruway, c 1951

How to Rescue Your  Photos From an Old Computer

Synchro-Vox: The lips move, but not much else. (Think of Clutch Cargo)

Now I Know:  How to Lick a Killer Serve and Profit That’s Easy as Pie and  Frosty, The Snowman Reaction and Mr. Bubble, Pink Super Hero and
 The Stinging Feeling of Expertise e

Obits

John Madden Honored Across the NFL on First Sunday After His Death. I really knew that the player/coach/broadcaster with 16 Emmys/video game consultant was significant when my wife, who does not follow football, wanted to watch the special about Madden, which first aired only three days before his unexpected death.

Peter Bogdanovich, Oscar-Nominated Director, Dies at 82 (The Last Picture Show, What’s Up, Doc? and Paper Moon)

Trailblazing feminist author, critic, and activist bell hooks has died at 69

Harry Reid remembered as a fighter, skilled Senate dealmaker

Remembering Franklin Thomas, the first Black foundation president in America

The US’s oldest surviving WWII Vet, Lawrence Brooks, has died at 112

Dwayne Hickman, Star of ‘The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis,’ Dies at 87

Bob Saget Dies at 65. I didn’t watch Full House or AFV, but I’m taken how well-respected he was by other performers.

Ronnie Spector of the Ronettes died at age 78

Laura Curtis, the MIL of my eldest niece, died. I have only one memory of her, which is here 

Virtual DC Feb 7 2022

Language

From respair to cacklefart – the joy of reclaiming long-lost positive words

Graminovore – An animal that feeds on grass
Granivore – An animal that feeds on grain and seeds

Ecdysiast is a fancy word for stripper

Either or neither of three?

Inspired by Roger Owen Green

Ask Arthur Anything: To blog, or not to blog and Biblical endings and me and NZ seriousness, me, and fun

To love the Three Stooges is to love America.

MUSIC

Move On – Bernadette Peters from Sunday in the Park With George.

Sondheim medley in a roadside diner – Carol Burnett, Tony Roberts, and Bernadette Peters

The 2021 (reduced) mashups 

Coverville: 1384 and 1385: The 2021 Coverville countdown. 1386: The David Bowie 75th Birthday Cover Story

Put Down The Duckie – Sesame Street

The Trolley Song – Voctave

Franklin Shepard Inc. from Merrily We Roll Along, London 2013

I Liked Me Better -Lauv

Catch Us If You Can – The Jalopy Five

At This Performance – Christine Pedi as Liza Minelli

Musicians who passed in 2021, Part One and Part Two

December rambling: slowest rate

Nell Stokes, Rebecca Jade, Literary Legends, public domain

Photo taken by Wayne
Photo was taken by Wayne

U.S. Population Grew 0.1% in 2021, Slowest Rate Since Founding of the Nation and  Net International Migration at Lowest Levels in Decades

What State of Matter is Fire?

Frequency Illusion? What’s the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon?

Black mothers turning to doulas in light of the nation’s horrifying maternal death rates

Two Texas teens dressed as Klansmen tased their Black classmate

Solomon Northup’s “A Slave’s Christmas” 

Wreck of last US slave ship mostly intact on the coast

NEA Guide for Racial Justice in Education

Missouri Cop Pulls Over School Bus Driver For Wearing A Mask

147 New York dams are ‘unsound’ and potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in more than 20 years

The departed

Hidden Pentagon records reveal patterns of failure in deadly airstrikes 

Desmond Tutu, a cleric who campaigned against apartheid in South Africa,  dies at 90. “A moral beacon in a deeply troubled land, Tutu managed to irritate the African National Congress government that took power after South Africa’s first all-race elections, as much as he had riled the apartheid regime that had previously oppressed the country’s Black majority.”

Joan Didion, Literary Titan, Dies at 87;  Jon Avnet on Making ‘Up Close and Personal’ With Her

 TCM Remembrance of performers past

This Year, Hollywood’s China Relationship Finally Unraveled

After his performance in The Music Man, Hugh Jackman touts Broadway understudies, standbys, and swings. The role of Marion Paroo, the female lead, was supposed to be played by Sutton Foster, who tested positive for COVID. The role was covered by a swing named Kathy Voytko, who also covered seven other smaller roles in the production.

Flying from Honolulu to Buffalo just before Christmas

I Stopped Caring About My Kids’ School Grades. You Should, Too.

“She could never love me!” Comic books and disability cliches 

Chuck’s best blog moments of 2021, which includes me!

The Awakening – Albany’s first movie (1914)

See the movie short:  Seasoned Greetings (1933 Vitaphone). Lita Grey Chaplin w/ 7 Yr Old Sammy Davis Jr

Now I Know: A Brick That Broke The Glass Ceiling and The Amazing Spider-Man Coincidence and When It Feels Good to Pay More

Inspiring Quotes: If you can’t see anything beautiful about yourself, get a better mirror. – Shane Koyczan

Nominate the next Literary Legend!

Each year, the Friends and Foundation of Albany Public Library select a new outstanding person of letters to be honored as our Literary Legend. The FFAPL invites the public to nominate writers for the selection committee to consider.

Nominations must be received by January 9, 2022, for consideration by this year’s Selection Committee. The Literary Legends Selection Committee includes members of the FFAPL board, past Gala Chairpersons, and APL librarians.

Sound Treasures Enter the Public Domain

On January 1, 2022, 400,000 pre-1923 sound recordings will enter the public domain, thanks to a new U.S. law, the Music Modernization Act. To celebrate, you may attend a virtual event on January 20, “A Celebration of Sound.”

And it’s not just music! On January 1st, children’s classic Winnie the Pooh, Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, Rudolph Valentino in The Son of the Sheik, in addition to musical recordings such as Scott Joplin’s Maple Leaf Rag, and thousands more will all be free for creative reuse and sharing.

MUSIC
Hendrix.Nesmith.Tork
Hendrix.Nesmith.Tork found on Facebook

Am I Enough. Words: Nell Stokes. Vocals: CJay Philip, Nell’s daughter. Musical arrangement: Gail Sparlin. Piano: Larry Finke.

You Should Be Dancing – Dee Gees, who look a little like the Foo Fighters

Coverville 1382: Cover Stories for Patti Smith, Dido, and Britney Spears

New York State of Mind – NYCNext

Losing My Mind -Imelda Staunton, in a 2017 production of Follies by the National Theater

Tainted Love – Broken Peach 

Songbird -MonaLisa Twins

Dream On – Ann Wilson, live 

Stand By Me – Playing For Change

Mary, Mary, written by Michael Nesmith (30 Dec 1942-10 Dec 2021): Butterfield Blues Band Band, The Monkees 

It’s still Christmastide

Dave Koz and Friends // The Greatest Hits of Christmas – LIVESTREAM VIRTUAL CONCERT Recorded 12/12/20. With Jonathan Butler, Peter White, Kenny Lattimore, Michael Lington, Brian Simpson, and REBECCA JADE!

Have a sultry, soulful Christmas!

River – Joni Mitchell, Her first official video

J. Eric Smith –  Ten Songs You Need to Hear: Crimbo Version

Ramblin' with Roger
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