June rambling #1: Seven and Seven Is

Once I could have told you ALL the guys with 500+ homers.

Geez, I forgot to mention that I got together with some former JEOPARDY! contestants on the first Friday in May at a bar in Albany. I remember that because I had to rush from the First Friday event at my church. Anyway, nice people. Yes, and smart.

Mark Evanier writes about being The Advocate — “the functional person who handles everything for the sick person. I had to watch over their needs, get them whatever they required, intervene with the hospital and caregivers when necessary and run the aspects of their lives they could no longer handle, including personal finances. In simpler terms, I had to just be there for them.” Maybe I got a little teary.

I was going to write why I think the US pulling out of the Paris Climate Agreement won’t be that bad, since mayors and governors and industry will step up. But with The Weekly Sift guy explaining The Paris Agreement is like my church’s pledge drive, plus what John Oliver said (or here), and what Hank Green said and what Ben & Jerry wrote and what Arthur wrote, I’m not feeling compelled.

Covfefe department: Do trademarks present an ethical violation? These probably do. Plus the swamp and failed Twitter intervention and the corrosive privilege of the most mocked man in the world.

Chuck Miller, my former Times Union blogger buddy – we’re still buds, but he’s not with the TU blogs anymore, explained in these pages in early April. Anyway, he is doing a new thing, and I am mentioned. The only problem is that he didn’t link to a certain song, so I did, below.

Chuck also writes about Teri Conroy, who also used to be in the TU blog farm. I’ve met her and she really IS a saint.

Su-sieee! Mac, one our ABC Wednesday participants: “Am I allowed to say I’m a cancer survivor when I didn’t know I had cancer?”

My local library branch (Pine Hills in Albany) gets a new art installation every few months. Among the artists this go round is Peach Tao, whose dinosaur woodcuts are really cool. I went to the opening on June 2. The art will be there until October 28.

Jaquandor has been doing his Bad Joke Friday for a while. Some are quite terrible. So naturally, sometimes I encourage him.

Albert Pujols became the ninth hitter in Major League Baseball to hit 600 or more home runs. Once I could have told you ALL the guys with 500+ homers, which used to be a lock for the Baseball Hall of Fame*. But as a result of the era of performance-enhancing drugs, Bonds and Sosa, for two, have not yet made it.
1 Barry Bonds 762
2 Hank Aaron * 755
3 Babe Ruth * 714
4 Alex Rodriguez 696
5 Willie Mays * 660
6 Ken Griffey, Jr.* 630
7 Jim Thome 612
8 Sammy Sosa 609

What Does Wonder Woman Actually Represent? and Revisiting the story that redefined her. Reckon Eddie and I need to see this movie.

The first shopping cart was introduced in OKC 80 years ago this week.

MUSIC

Dustbury expands on my reference to Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood.

Liverpool Plays Pepper (link good only in June 2017) and When I’m Sixty-Four – MonaLisa Twins and Sgt. Pepper at 50.

Hey, Animaniacs, shouldn’t it be 50 state capitals, plus the federal one?

K-Chuck Radio: The Adjustments of Popular Songs.

Seven and Seven Is – Love. (CM)

How Gregg Allman and Cher stunned Canisius High ‘assembly’ in 1976.

See what condition my condition was in

Some of you have asked what was the condition my blog between about 6 a.m. and 11 p.m. on Sunday, November 20, Eastern Standard Time, which is who knows when where you are.

I saw this DNS page when I got up:
dns
I emailed the provider at some point early that morning, but then I was in church for several hours, and I didn’t get home until 2 p.m. Around 11:30 a.m., I had received a message that the blog was fixed, but I couldn’t see it, literally.

Briefly, though, I could actually access an altered version of my blog – no pics – long enough to actually copy the text of my current post and throw it on my Times Union blog.

Soon, even that ability went away, and I got first:

Error 520 Ray ID: 304f0526d2f8220a • 2016-11-20 21:33:25 UTC

Web server is returning an unknown error

 

Then back to the weird ad shots.

When you’re IN the situation, you don’t always record the situation, and afterward, one may not wish to revisit it. Fortunately, the wise and wonderful Dustbury explains it rather fully HERE, and note my comment there as well.

OBVIOUSLY, I need to post the song Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In). It was [listen to all] , written by Mickey Newbury, “recorded… by Teddy Hill & the Southern Soul, [covered by] Jerry Lee Lewis… and a hit for Kenny Rogers and the First Edition.”

May rambling #2: a controlled descent of a vertical drop


Online Privacy Guide for Journalists 2017

How to #StayOutraged Without Losing Your Mind

Race and education make a bigger difference in who you vote for than ever before

Voting Rate for the Non-Hispanic Black Population Dropped in the 2016 Presidential Election

John Lewis: “Get in the way”

vlogbrothers: Your Neighborhood, Your Life Expectancy

Cartoon: Freedom to be screwed, 2017 edition

Are we monsters?

Quora: Before Obamacare, when insurance companies denied people for pre-existing conditions, did that mean people who had them couldn’t get insurance? (The short answer is “yes”, over and over.)

Climate of Propaganda

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Net Neutrality II; last 4 minutes are true about people on the Internet

The statement issued by 50 prominent Republican national security experts in August 2016 pointing out that a man who would not, under normal circumstances, ever be given a high-level security clearance was unfit to be President

#37 counsels #45

“The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in times of great moral crises maintain their neutrality” – Dante

“Closer Look” with Seth Meyers, maybe the sharpest political comedy on TV these days

The 5 Worst Dressed Men on Capitol Hill

Narcissistic personality disorder

He is what he appears to be

Pence embodies what’s wrong with Washington

‘SNL’s’ Yuuuge Year

Danth’s Law is an Internet axiom which asserts that if a person has to insist that he or she has won an Internet argument, it is likely the said person has lost

Mark Evanier writes about palliative care for Carolyn Kelly

Mauno Koivisto, president who led Finland out of Soviet shadow, dies at 93

Steve Palermo, Umpire Whose Career Was Ended by a Bullet, Dies at 67

Internet Archive cited for Lifetime Achievement at the 21st Annual Webby Awards

See Old New York in Stunning Photos

You Use Algebra All The Time (Even If You Don’t Realize it)

Find Percentage With Percent Increase Online Calculator ; I’ve had to use this to explain a point this year

50 Years of Stupid Grammar Advice

Word of the week: An abseil (/ˈæbseɪl/ or /ˈɑːpzaɪl/; from German abseilen, meaning “to rope down”), also called a rappel after its French name, is a controlled descent of a vertical drop, such as a rock face, using a rope. Climbers use this technique when a cliff or slope is too steep and/or dangerous to descend without protection. Pronounced AB-sale. As seen here.

The Mystery of the Mysterious Glass

Now I Know: The Self-Aware Conference Call Line and The Off-Color Golden Arches

The sandwich alignment chart

MUSIC

Walter O’Brien: The Man Who Never Returned by PETER DREIER and JIM VRABEL. “In 1949, the Boston People’s Artists wrote ‘MTA’ for a left-wing candidate. The song became a hit — the man behind it disappeared.”

Visions, by Jules Massenet

Baltimore – Audra McDonald

Coverville Cover Stories 1169: Badfinger and Tommy James & the Shondells and 1170: Talking Heads

Julie London singing Cry Me A River and…

The great songs: Time Is Tight by Booker T. & the M.G.’s

Meet the critic who panned ‘Sgt. Pepper’ then discovered his speaker was busted; he’s still not sorry

TheDowntown.church, Springfield, MO

May rambling #1: Bringing the Invisible to Life

The Daredevils Without Landlines

And Jesus Said Unto Paul of Ryan … “Pious Paul interjected, ‘For the Samaritan’s work is unsustainable and sends the wrong message. It teaches travelers to take dangerous roads, knowing that others will rescue them from self-destructive behaviors.”

Strength Through Unity: How To Spot Fascism Before It’s Too Late

American Identity is Based on Alternate History

The Truest, Meanest Jokes that Bombed at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner

The absurd amount of entitlements that go to rich people and Why cutting rich people’s taxes doesn’t create jobs

Jimmy Kimmel’s Radically Simple ‘Jimmy Kimmel Test’

Torching the Modern-Day Library of Alexandria

Jodi Picoult: Are You Sure You’re Not Racist?

Someone wants to know why there was a Civil War and could Andrew Jackson have stopped it?

George Will: This president does not know what it is to know

Much Ado About Religious Liberty

Heineken ad

Is the special relationship ending? (Australia, New Zealand)

Vlogbrothers: Can You Trust Mainstream Media? and The Life Changing Magic of Thumbs Up

Younger Men, Older Women: A Pairing Becomes More Common

WebMD stands for medically deficient

There Is a Fake IDGod, and He Lives in China

The Daredevils Without Landlines — And Why Health Experts Are Tracking Them

Camsing Acquires Stan Lee’s POW! Entertainment

David Brickman review: Neil deGrasse Tyson at Proctors

Man forced to surrender his ‘offensive’ Star Trek license plate

Tony nominations (yes, I watch)

Now I Know: The Google Maps Invasion and Bringing the Invisible to Life and Lighting Up the Switchboards

Good luck (shhh!) and spam wedding

All of a sudden or all of the sudden

Please type your preferred plurals in the comments box: alumnus, apparatus, appendix, aquarium, cactus, crisis, criterion, focus, thesis, forum, fungus, hippopotamus, index, nucleus, octopus, phenomenon, referendum, radius, stadium, syllabus, prospectus, ellipsis, museum, factotum, status

Music

LISTEN TODAY! Bette Midler stars as Dolly Levi in the Tony Award-nominated revival of Hello, Dolly, before album is released May 12.

Saxa of the (English) Beat, R.I.P.

Princess Leia’s Stolen Death Star Plans, a Star Wars/Beatles fan tribute

TEN HOURS of the Cantina Band

Top 10 Songs About Elvis Presley, not including Elvis Presley Boulevard – Billy Joel, the only Joel single I own (B-side to Allentown)

Chuck Miller: Wake up, you sleeping lion!

Someday My Prince Will Come – Dave Brubeck Quartet

Photos show the world’s biggest rock stars as tourists in 1970s Japan

Forbes: How The Music Industry Is Putting Itself Out Of Business

The Eagles Sue an Actual Hotel California

April rambling #3: 100 days (seems longer)

The niece’s new album: Planet Cole Porter. This is a collection of songs sung by Rebecca Jade with Peter Sprague’s amazing arrangements.

Deliver us from Scripture-citers

Pastorized for your protection

What’s Our Story? How do we defend Western values if we no longer believe the story that used to justify them?

‘They Starve You. They Shock You’: Inside the Anti-Gay Pogrom in Chechnya

Racism, Hot and Cold

Women Don’t Need to Apologize Less — Men Need to Learn How to Apologize

Questions You Should Ask Yourself Before Catcalling Someone

Why Traveling is More Important Now than Ever

Gisele Lagace, Canadian comic book artist, refused entrance at the US border

Rapp On This: Raging scum (bull v girl)

For 18 years, I thought she was stealing my identity – Until I found her

Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich has Fairbanks Disease, which causes stunted bone growth. He’s 4’11”. So he was bullied mercilessly in school until somebody stood up for him. An older kid who he didn’t even know began to beat the crap out of anybody who bothered him. It was the foundational experience of his life.
The older kid was Mickey Schwerner. A few years later, Schwerner joined Andrew Goodman and James Chaney and went door-to-door in Mississippi, trying to register Black voters. You know what happened.

This Lawsuit Goes to 11

Harry Potter and The Problem With The Pensieve Memories

Now I Know: The Rise and Fall of the Flivverboobs and An Astronaut’s Most Important Fan and The Time Travel Trap

Weed can play a significant role in your romantic relationships

The 8 Personalities You’ll Meet When Dating in the U.S.

Space Sex is Serious Business

The picture on the top of the page is of actress Gloria DeHaven. Yet it shows up often on the Internet as being a young Frances Bavier, the woman who would eventually play Aunt Bee on the Andy Griffith Show in the 1960s.

Illustrated Guide To Playing Sports As An Adult!

Five Questions for Rick Geary by Alan David Doane

I did not realize this until recently, but I think I’m becoming a devotee of the British way of punctuation. “British usage omits the apostrophe in the plural form of dates (e.g., 1980s)”. Also, “British style (more sensibly) places unquoted periods and commas outside the quotation marks.”

100 days

New York Times: White House Reporters Recall Their Most Vivid Moments

Fourteen per cent of US Christians left their churches after the election

Here Are The National Monuments At Risk

Massive Corporate Tax Cut Literally Cannot Pass Congress

Seth Meyers: ‘For every action, there’s an equal and opposite clip’

Anti-immigrant hotline bombarded with reports of space aliens

‘I thought it would be easier’

Ivanka & Jared: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

Music


UNABASHED PLUG for the niece’s new album: Planet Cole Porter. This is a collection sung by Rebecca Jade, with Peter Sprague’s amazing arrangements.

Cuba Gooding, Sr., RIP

Pentatonix’s Acapella Spin of Queen’s All-Time Classic

Simon, Garfunkel, Sound of Silence, live

Kermit sings Once In a Lifetime (featuring The Electric Mayhem)

Flapper pie

K-Chuck Radio: The Arthur Baker Groove System and Saturday morning rock and roll!

Not me: Dinner with Roger Green (Formerly of The Czars), Sun, May 28, 2017, 6:00 pm (event ends at 10:00 pm) in Denver
No Cover!

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