Daily Show Archives - Ramblin' with Roger

Dec. rambling: empathy

Peter Spraugue and Rebecca Jade

Empathy is the new Christian battleground (I’m pro-empathy)

The casino-fication of news: New partnerships between the prediction market Kalshi and cable TV networks will transform every news event into a betting opportunity.

Why Pregnant Black Women Are Routinely Ignored in American Hospitals

Polypharmacy Is a Real Issue. Dismantling Public Health Won’t Fix It. — A healthy society needs more than just “quick fixes.”

As California Limits Water Use, People in Prison Face Punishment for Showering

Australia just enacted the world’s first social media ban for children under 16 years old.

African leaders convene to recognize and seek reparations for colonial-era crimes

Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. ADOPTED 10 December 1984 BY UN General Assembly resolution 39/46

Black History Has the Power to Ignite Movements. That’s Why the Right Fears It.

Remembering the heroes and the villains of World AIDS Day

A teenager redrew the Alabama voting map – and it’s now state law

Legendary Architect Frank Gehry Has Passed Away—These Are His 10 Most Iconic Designs

This Stunning Image Shows a Skydiver Falling Across the Face of the Sun. “The Fall of Icarus” – Andrew McCarthy, Cosmic Background

The Unlikely Story of an E-mail Time Machine

Drop-Off Day for A Shooting Star

At least 31 languages have a word very similar to ‘huh?’

Archaeologists Find Evidence of a Bronze City in Kazakhstan

Now I Know: The Cost of Being a Simpsons Superfan and A Free Race Ticket, With Ups and Downs, and The Book That Got Americans Hanged and The Worst of the Best is Still Pretty Amazing, and Let’s Have a Book Burning? and The Country of Cookie Dough

“Underinclusive”

A MAGA National Security Strategy; the document, which you should try to read if you can stomach it

Boat strikes: War crime or “fake news” hoax?

How he flipped America’s race conversation

Hepatitis B Vaccine Recommendation For Children Changed By CDC As Academy Of Pediatrics Opposes Decision

U.S. Wants to Scrutinize Foreign Tourists’ Social Media History. Even visitors from countries like Britain and France, whose citizens don’t need visas, would have to share five years’ worth of social media.

Get ready to consume more forever chemicals.

Daily Show: Immigration Double Standard and Jordan Klepper’s Give the Man a Prize

War on ‘woke’ comes for … fonts?

Is sleepy Donald the new ‘Sleepy Joe’?

New poll paints a grim picture of a nation under financial strain

MUSIC

Nowhere Man – Peter Sprague, featuring Rebecca Jade

Song For Bob Dylan – David Bowie

Song to Woody – Bob Dylan

Girl From the North Country – Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash

Beautiful Strangers – Mavis Staples

The Gadabout, Part II – Bryce Dessner from the Train Dreams soundtrack from the Netflix film

It’s Beginning To Look Like F This and RFK! -Randy Rainbow Song Parodies

Alex Chilton – The Replacements

La Mer by Claude Debussy

David Byrne: Tiny Desk Concert, 1 Dec 2025

Bees by Jerskin Fendrix from the motion picture Bugonia

Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way – Waylon Jennings

The Fountains of Rome by Ottorino Respighi.

Peg – Steely Dan

New Directive – Nine Inch Nails from the movie TRON: Ares

Coverville 1559: The 22nd Annual Beatles Thanksgiving Cover Story and 1560: The Alex Chilton Cover Story

From the soundtrack to One Battle After Another by Jonny Greenwood

Jackie Wilson Said (I’m in Heaven When You Smile) – Van Morrison

By the River, the second movement of the ‘Florida Suite’ by Frederick Delius (1862-1934)

J. Eric Smith’s Best Albums and Best Music Videos of 2025

One of my favorite companies, Joel Whitburn’s Record Research, has a future.

Seattle-based musician and chocolatier Aaron Lindstrom wanted to create a space that combined his two passions: chocolate and music. Cocoa Legato is a unique bean-to-bar chocolate factory and café that hosts live music performances and focuses on producing naturally vegan dark chocolate. 12/01/2025

Academy Awards nominations et al.

baseball, The Daily Show, JEOPARDY!

As I’m sure I mentioned once upon a time, I pay attention to the Academy Awards nominations. In the early 1990s, I’d listen to the radio at work and jot down the major selections. Now I can wait ten minutes and find it online.

The issue of an awards snub currently seems particularly energized. Academy Award winner Whoopi Goldberg denies it happened this year but one of her The View costars says otherwise. A guy on my Facebook feed says no, and is accused of mansplaining.

THR writes: “One irony of the backlash to the Barbie snubs is that it has attempted to pit women against women. (Barbie Land would never!) One column has been excoriated for appearing to diminish the performances of the nominated actresses in defense of [Margot] Robbie.”

For me, it’s clear I need to see more performances. There are five women Best Actress in a Leading Role:

Annette Bening (Nyad)
Lily Gladstone (Killers of the Flower Moon)
Sandra Hüller (Anatomy of a Fall)
Carey Mulligan (Maestro)
Emma Stone (Poor Things)

I’ve seen only Mulligan.

Likewise, these folks were nominated for Best Directing:

Justine Triet (Anatomy of a Fall)
Martin Scorsese (Killers of the Flower Moon)
Christopher Nolan (Oppenheimer)
Yorgos Lanthimos (Poor Things)
Jonathan Glazer (The Zone of Interest)

I’ve seen only Oppy, so I can’t say of Greta Gerwig was snubbed or not.

Best pics

Ten films were selected as Best Picture nominees. The ones I’ve seen I’ve starred:

*American Fiction (Ben LeClair, Nikos Karamigios, Cord Jefferson and Jermaine Johnson, Producers)
Anatomy of a Fall (Marie-Ange Luciani and David Thion, Producers)
*Barbie (David Heyman, Margot Robbie, Tom Ackerley and Robbie Brenner, Producers)
*The Holdovers (Mark Johnson, Producer)
Killers of the Flower Moon (Dan Friedkin, Bradley Thomas, Martin Scorsese and Daniel Lupi, Producers)
*Maestro (Bradley Cooper, Steven Spielberg, Fred Berner, Amy Durning and Kristie Macosko Krieger, Producers)
*Oppenheimer (Emma Thomas, Charles Roven and Christopher Nolan, Producers)
*Past Lives (David Hinojosa, Christine Vachon and Pamela Koffler, Producers)
Poor Things (Ed Guiney, Andrew Lowe, Yorgos Lanthimos and Emma Stone, Producers)
The Zone of Interest (James Wilson, Producer)

Time to get to the theater, where these films have either shown up for the first time or have made an Oscar nom return.

I won’t be seeing these films, though. Razzie Awards: ‘Expend4bles’ Leads Nominations. ‘Exorcist: Believer’ and ‘Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey’ also nabbed multiple mentions.

MLB HOF

I’m happy Adrián Beltré, Todd Helton, and Joe Mauer were selected for the Baseball Hall of Fame. But I’m sad that, in his 9th try out of ten chances, reliever Billy Wagner came up five votes short.

Gary Sheffield: HE was snubbed, falling off the ballot after receiving 63.9% of the vote, with 75% needed.

Next year’s ballot will include Ichiro Suzuki and CC Sabathia. Both should get in on the first ballot, with Ichiro, the only MLB player I know to have his first name on the back of his jersey, a mortal lock.

I’m sad to read that Chicago Cubs Hall of Fame infielder Ryne Sandberg has been diagnosed with prostate cancer and has begun treatment. Part of it is that my father died of the disease.

NFL playoffs

Go, Detroit Lions! General Motors is delaying a shift on Sunday so that their workers can see the Lions’ NFC title game completion against the San Francisco 49ers.

Like the return of Michael Jordan to the Bulls

I’m glad Jon Stewart is back on The Daily Show, even if it’s once a week on air, plus serving as executive producer, at least through the election. TDS veterans are thrilled. I liked the top-secret intrigue in luring him back.

J!

To my surprise, I found this season’s Celebrity JEOPARDY more interesting than the previous iteration. It’s also a lot more fun than the regular game’s interminable Champions Wildcard, where they bring back players from the past three seasons. That said, I’m rooting for Martha Bath, who won back in 1972 when Art Fleming was the host and then won again a couple of years ago.

Celebrity J! fans criticized ABC for revealing the winner ahead of the final tournament: ‘Thanks for the spoiler.’ An ad for Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night program featured the winner. (If you’ve recorded it without watching it, I’M not going to provide a spoiler.) Luckily for me, I watched it fast-forwarding through the commercials.

The Police Quota System

read the manual

The Daily Show with Trevor Noah had a segment called The Police Quota System – If You Don’t Know, Now You Know. “Police officers give people tickets for speeding or running a stop sign, but there’s another reason that people are getting pulled over: It’s the dirty little secret called the quota system.”

Here’s a news story about the Daily Show segment. “Noah explains that police give people traffic tickets for multiple reasons, be it speeding or running a stop sign, or simply to generate ticket revenue. The quota system is illegal in a handful of states, like Florida, at which Noah quipped that if it’s illegal in Florida, ‘then it’s got to be really bad.'”

And the map shown indicated that quotas are likewise illegal in New York. But a friend of mine, a very good driver, I believe was caught up in one of those situations. I wasn’t present but heard all about it. And it’s what they WEREN’T charged with that really caught my attention.

CAUTION

In a small, rural community, there was a school bus riding down the road with its yellow lights flashing. My friend was driving on the other side of the road toward the bus. But since the bus never stopped, my friend slowed down but did not halt.

The local cop soon pulled over my friend. He said, “Do you know why I pulled you over?” “No.” “Because you passed the bus. You should have come to a stop.” This is bogus.

From the NYS DMV manual: When a stopped school bus flashes its red light(s), traffic that approaches from either direction, even in front of the school and in school parking lots, must stop before it reaches the bus. You should stop at least 20 feet (6 m) away from the bus…

Before a school bus stops to load or discharge passengers, the driver will usually flash warning lights, which are located on the front and back of the bus near the roof. When you see them, decrease speed and be prepared to stop. Which is what happened, but the bus NEVER stopped.

Then the cop said he’d give my friend a pass on the bus charge and only give out a ticket for speeding. Unfortunately, this place is four hours away, because my friend would LOVE to see the alleged sign suggesting a lowered speed limit. So going back to challenge the ticket is not cost-effective, especially since my friend has not had a ticket in decades.

Kübler-Ross and IMPOTUS defeat

Remembering RBG

Fraud — **My daughter keeps track of GOP tropes. This design is available on sweatshirts.**

You know, this political season has made me exhausted. I hoped the election would settle things, though I had my doubts.

Sure enough, Attorney General Barr is acting like IMPOTUS’ personal attorney. The future ex-President removes the scientist from overseeing a key climate assessment report. The grift continues. He seems to be engaged in a scorched earth policy. If he doesn’t concede, the GSA head won’t release the mechanism for Joe Biden to be a part of an orderly transition.

But it’s more than that. The vitriol is still strong. And, as people saw on my Facebook feed that Saturday, some guy came around to attack me personally for being pleased that Biden had won. It wasn’t some random guy either, but a fellow who had been my next-door neighbor when I was growing up in Binghamton, NY. Let’s call him Greg because that’s his name.

Greg had been around trolling me in the past. But I had found him useful. It’s important, I think, to understand how others think. This time, he was hyper-critical and fairly nasty at that. He said that I didn’t vote for the man because IMPOTUS had hurt my feelings?

Well, no, I objected to him trying to wreck the very fabric of the country: the postal service, the Census, the CDC, the Justice Department (see above), the EPA, etc, etc, etc.

Greg also seemed to be offended because I was a fool not to recognize that I’m financially better off under the regime. He never used the term directly. But I sensed that he was suggesting that since black people’s unemployment was down, pre-pandemic, I was oblivious to the regime’s “greatness.”

cf RBG’s death

Here’s the thing. I don’t agree with the premise. The tax cut helped the rich far more than regular folks. But even if I had concurred, I still thought his policies, toward COVID, immigration, the environment, and so much more, plus his constant lying, were disqualifying attributes. But why pick on me? There were plenty of people who are happy that the reign of error was over.

Then I saw Remembering RBG: A Nation Ugly Cries with Desi Lydic. It was a special program from The Daily Show folks. Desi was going through the five stages of grief as described by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross after Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death. Although, instead of acceptance, the fifth stage is action. Not incidentally, Elizabeth Warren, as usual, offered wise counsel.

So Greg, I recognize, was grieving. He dumped on me because he sort of knew me, though I haven’t seen him in a half-century. I get it.

In my recollection, when Hillary lost in 2016, the reaction was mostly utter shock and depression, not rage. As my teenage daughter noted, in 2016, we were saying, “That can’t be true!” even as we grudgingly knew, unfortunately, it was. The losing side in 2020 has been fed the notion “It IS NOT TRUE!” (See John Oliver.) That’s a harder bridge to cross.

BTW, I remain infuriated by the continued voter suppression, particularly in Florida. The GOP won the state by about 340,000. More than twice as many released felons were disenfranchised. Maybe the Sunshine State COULD have gone the other way…

End of year rambling: who ARE these people?

The year’s worst falsehoods and bogus claims

Is God a Robot That Just Hasn’t Been Invented Yet?

Hating the poor in the season of giving

How to Hire Fake Friends and Family

Fiction from the New Yorker: Cat Person

Thousands Once Spoke His Language in the Amazon; Now, He’s the Only One

How ancient mastodon bones sparked a modern-day battle among scientists

Chuck Miller: When I caught the Times Union editing my blog headlines without my permission

RIP, Sue Grafton at 77 – Y Is For Yesterday: her last mystery series novel

Arthur answers Roger’s questions about the regime in DC and the nasty people in DC and blogging, and Kiwi language and his most evergreen post

RIP to Rose Marie, who was of an uncertain age; at least she was around for this; Dick Van Dyke has lost two costars this year, with Mary Tyler Moore passing in January

2018 US postage stamps: Musician John Lennon, performer and activist Lena Horne, America’s first woman in space Sally Ride, and children’s television pioneer Mr. Rogers

Mark Evanier has been blogging for 17 years this month, a site I check out daily

RIP Dick Enberg

Clifford Irving, Author of a Notorious Literary Hoax, Dies at 87

Quotable Kirby

Erie, PA Receives Record 53 Inches of Snow in 30 Hours

Now I Know: The People Who Protect Chewbacca and The Worthless $65 Million Masterpiece That Cost $29 Million and The Town That Pays Criminals to Cut it Out and The Accidental Masterpiece and The New York Police Department’s Giant Problem and The People Who Protect Chewbacca

What is it like to go through a car wash with the windows down?

Wise Old Sayings

TICKS, MANY OF THEM

What Do You Call a World That Can’t Learn From Itself?

This is the thanks he gets for “overhauling” the American tax system?

‘He Would Probably Be a Dictator by Now’

The Nationalist’s Delusion

The United States of America Is Decadent and Depraved

Should We Care What Happens to the GOP’s Soul?

I Won’t Tolerate A ‘Different Viewpoint’ When It’s Based On Blatant Lies

The Whoppers of 2017: the year’s worst falsehoods and bogus claims

“Neoliberalism” isn’t an empty epithet – It’s a real, powerful set of ideas

How life is now in Puerto Rico

“Hope has two beautiful daughters: their names are Anger and Courage. Anger at the way things are, and Courage to see that they do not remain as they are.” – Augustine of Hippo

TWENTY-SEVENTEEN

The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2017 and 1957

2017 is the best?

Instagram’s Favorite New Yorker Cartoons of 2017

YouTube’s highest paid stars – who ARE these people? I’m old

The Biggest Tech Fails of 2017

Turner Classic Movies’ annual Obituary Video

The Daily Show team looks back at the biggest events of 2017 in news, sports, and pop culture

MUSIC

RIP Keely Smith

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised – Gil Scott Heron

Keep On Doing What You’re Doing/Jerks On The Loose – Kelly Hogan and Nora O’Connor

Two songs from Björk’s 2017 album Utopia

Dmitri Shostakovich – Waltz No. 2

Regretro -Lifestyle album

The Last Day of Summer – Elyxr, ft Color Theory

Retrospect -Freen in Green, ft. Liz Enthusiasm

Heavensent – Bao

TWO TICKET TO PHUKET

Sufjan Stevens, Chris Cornell, “Weird Al” Yankovic, Taylor Swift on longlist for Best Original Song Oscar

Dominic Frontiere, Composer for ‘The Outer Limits,’ ‘The Flying Nun,’ Dies at 86