Tag: Ken Burns

November rambling: America’s Greatness

Second Cousin or Once Removed?

America’s Greatness: A Guest Commentary

The Vibecession and the AI bubble

America’s got a Jenga economy

Citizens United and the Decline of US Democracy: Assessing the Decision’s Impact 15 Years Later

A Vast Camera System Now Feeds Police Information on Drivers Across the US. They have been called invasive, insecure, and unconstitutional. 

Public Media: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

America is sliding toward illiteracy

Veterans Charities to Avoid

Panel discussion at Hampshire College’s 55th anniversary celebration: “Urgent and Unbounded: The Role of Liberal Arts Education in an Age of Rising Authoritarianism,” featuring filmmaker and historian Ken Burns, 71F, AI expert and author Gary Marcus, 86F, and Dr. Lynn Pasquerella, P08, president of the American Association of Colleges and Universities.

The Wonderful Public Domain of Oz

Boss preppers: What does a captain of industry have to offer after the sh*t hits the fan?

Short of Medicare for All, Bernie Sanders Offers Democrats 6 Other Ways to Tackle Healthcare Crisis

Disney has lost Roger Rabbit.

Terrible Maps and a very tall garden shed

How a humble weed became a superstar of biology

What’s a capitonym? It is a prime example of the power of capitalization: a single letter can transform a regular noun, such as “turkey,” into a proper noun with a different meaning — “Turkey.”

Building a Book Lamp – actually, building a lamp made out of books

The Chinese Ban on “Fried Rice” and The Lake That Killed Its Neighbors, and At Least He Was Right About the Cake Thing? and Does This Expensive Coffee Taste Like Poop?

Relations

Because I was asked: Second Cousin or Once Removed? Untangling the Family Tree. The Kennedy example: Caroline, JFK’s daughter, and RFK Jr, RFK’s son, are first cousins.

Caroline’s son, Jack Schlossberg (who’s running for Congress in NYC), is RFK Jr.’s first cousin once removed. “If someone is your cousin ‘once removed,’ that means they’re one generation above or below you. For example, your mother’s cousin is your first cousin once removed.” Jack’s sister, Tatiana Schlossberg, also RFK Jr.’s first cousin once removed, announced she has a rare terminal cancer. She noted: “Throughout my treatment, he had been on the national stage… mostly as an embarrassment to me and the rest of my immediate family.”

Metamucilini and company

Shorter Days, Signs of Fatigue: He Faces Realities of Aging in Office

In Courting Saudi Arabia, He Emulates MBS’s Authoritarianism

RFK, Jr. Violates Agreement On CDC Vaccine Guidance, Putting Millions At Risk

The FDA Commissioner Is Missing the Point of Advisory Committees — Makary’s hand-picked panels lack diversity of opinion, robust evidence reviews, and credibility

Swastikas and Nooses Are No Longer Hate Symbols Under New Coast Guard Rules

Soldiers Must Disobey Unlawful Orders — It’s Their Legal Duty

List of Degrees Not Classed As ‘Professional’ by Regime

Marjorie Taylor Greene resigns: Read her statement in full. I’m oddly annoyed that he chooses to misspell her last name as Green.

MUSIC

Reggae legend Jimmy Cliff dies, aged 81. The Harder They Come; Many Rivers To Cross

Robert Plant: Tiny Desk Concert, Nov 21, 2025

J. Eric Smith’s Genre Delve: British Folk Rock and Metal vs Hard Rock

Coverville 1558: The Neil Young Cover Story IV

MTG Has Broken Cover – Marsh Family parody of “Billie Jean” by MJ about Marjorie Taylor Greene

Tomorrow Never Knows – The Beatles

The Beatles Songbook – Christine Pedi 

Heaven -James McCartney 

Vltava (The Moldau) by Bedrich Smetana

Spill The Wine – Eric Burdon & War 

Waterways by Ludovico Einaudi

Not One Of Us – Peter Gabriel

The Hunt for Red October suite by  Basil Poledouris

Bach Fugue -The Newfangled Four | GWC 50th Anniversary Show

The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald – Born Free 

White Rabbit – Jefferson Airplane

Long May You Run – The Stills-Young Band

Time Of The Season– The Zombies

My Fair Lady overture

Take Me or Leave Me  – Idina Menzel · Tracie Thoms from RENT OST

Table for Two, Away from the Band, Please – Road Work Ahead

Organist John Jasper McClellan (1874-1925) performs the Overture from Tännhauser (1845) by Richard Wagner (1813-1883). It’s one of the oldest acoustic (church) pipe organ recordings ever made, from late August and early September 1910 in the Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City, Utah. Given the label print from the disc, this must have been a later production run of this record.

We Built This City – Starship

Blame It on the Record Label

Hot Country Hits of 1975, part 1

Merle Haggard, Conway Twitty

This is the Hot Country Hits of 1975, part 1. There are 43 songs in total, only eight of which charted for more than a week. I’ll note the ones that were also #1 on the pop charts.

Convoy—C.W. McCall, six weeks at #1. I couldn’t believe this did not hit #1 on the pop charts, as I heard it often, and it seemed to have encapsulated the CB radio craze. It even inspired a 1978 movie. Ah, it did hit #1 pop, but not until early 1976. It was chronologically the last #1 country hit of 1975.

Rhinestone Cowboy -Glen Campbell, three weeks at #1; also #1 pop for two weeks and #1 AC for a week. I really liked him.

Before The Next Teardrop Falls – Freddy Fender, two weeks at #1; also #1 pop for a week.

Always Wanting You – Merle Haggard, two weeks at #1. He had a total of four #1s in 1975. Several biographies were crafted for the Ken Burns series Country Music on the PBS website. Here’s his.

Touch The Hand – Conway Twitty, two weeks at #1. Three #1s, including a duet, in 1975.

Wasted Days and Wasted Nights – Freddy Fender, two weeks at #1. Two #1s in 1975

Daydreams About Night Things– Ronnie Milsap, two weeks at #1. Two #1s in 1975

#1 for one week

The Door – George Jones

Ruby Baby – Billy “Crash” Craddock, the Leiber-Stoller song previously recorded by, among others, the Drifters (#10 RB in 1956), Dion (#2 pop in 1963), the  Beatles, and the Beach Boys

Kentucky Gambler – Merle Haggard

(I’d Be) A Legend In My Time – Ronnie Milsap

City Lights – Mickey Gilley. Two #1s in 1975

Then Who Am I – Charlie Pride. Two #1s in 1975

Devil In The Bottle – T.G. Sheppard. Two #1s in 1975

I Care – Tom T. Hall. This appears on the album Country Songs For Children

It’s Time To Pay The Fiddler – Cal Smith

Linda On My Mind – Conway Twitty

The Bargain Store – Dolly Parton. PBS bio.

I Just Can’t Get Her Out Of My Mind – Johnny Rodriguez, yet it didn’t even make the top 100 pop. Three #1s in 1975. PBS bio. His website. He died May 9, 2025.

Always Wanting You – Merle Haggard

Blanket On The Ground – Billie Jo Spears

July rambling: the Sin of Condemnation

The 1934 National Firearms Act unconstitutional?

The Stones in Our Hands: Misreading John 8 and the Sin of Condemnation

‘Motherhood Should Come With a Warning Label’

CBS News’ John Dickerson Takes on Paramount Settlement: “Can You Hold Power to Account After Paying It Millions?” (especially from 36:45) Dan Rather calls it “a Sell-Out to Extortion.” Steve Kroft tells Jon Stewart that it was a “shakedown.”

“The regime is gutting scientific research into climate and atmospheric science for political reasons; at the very time, we need a much better understanding of it,” said one environmentalist. “This is so reckless and dangerous.”

A 2024 report published by Texas A&M University found that extreme rainfall events in the state have already increased by about 10 percent due to climate change. That number could double in the coming decades, reaching a 20 percent increase compared to a century ago.

Deep cuts erode the foundations of the US public health system, end progress, and threaten worse to come.

Kelly has links, including the sad closing of the Ontario Science Centre, which my family LOVED when we went to Toronto in 2011.

VeggieTales creator Phil Vischer released a viral video about race in America in 2020, just after George Floyd was killed. If anything, it’s more relevant now.

Meet the Moon Mammoths, the baseball mascot masterminded by John Oliver’s show

Now I Know: The Bovine Unity of Milk and Glue? and Brunch: Because We Like the Party and Why the National Animal of Scotland is… Wait, Really? and This Airport SUX

Leading to the semiquincentennial

Full interview: Ken Burns on “Face the Nation” about his new film on the American Revolution and the importance of telling the story of American history.

July 4th in the Face of Fascism: Moral resources for Americans who know we’ve been betrayed – Our Moral Moment w/ Bishop William Barber & Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove

What July 5th taught me that July 4th never did. Real freedom doesn’t come wrapped in patriotic speeches or military parades; it comes through struggle, sacrifice, and the refusal to bow to empire, no matter what form it takes.

“If fireworks ring hollow, you’re not alone. Light a candle instead.”

HCR: The MAGA Ideology That Brought Us to This Moment. It’s Our Job to Make Sure People Know the Truth

Calls to GI Hotlines Rise as Service Members Consider Defying Orders. Conscientious objector applications surge under FOTUS as military members fear becoming “the saber that he’s rattling.”

I am the man on Fifth Avenue.

Americans Have Never Been Less Proud of Their Country

“While the lighthouse shining the way is admittedly hard to make out through the cruel fog that envelopes us, it is out there, sturdy upon the shore, and still blazing brightly. We must trust that we will rediscover its guiding power and, together, steer this ship safely home. We’ll do it together, and in our strong and welcome company, we will find the courage and conviction we need.” – Jay Kuo

Purblind bunny boiler

Heather Cox Richardson: “Within hours of [FOTUS] signing the [OBUB] into law, Gun Owners Of America and… other pro-gun organizations filed a lawsuit claiming the measure makes the 1934 National Firearms Act (NFA) unconstitutional. That law regulated machine guns and short-barrel guns by imposing a tax on them and making owners register their weapons. The Supreme Court upheld that law as a tax law. The budget reconciliation bill ended those taxes and thus, the plaintiffs’ claim, the constitutional justification for the law.”

10 Charts to Understand the 900-Page Budget Bill

GOP budget bill would give top 1% over $1 trillion in tax breaks, analysis finds. It will steal from the poor and give to the rich.

FOTUS/DOGE foreign aid cuts could cause 14 million deaths by 2030, study warns

The trolling is coming from inside the White House

Cold as ICE

A surge in ICE detentions of those with no criminal record, despite stated priorities. Still, “as a result of the agency’s stonewalling, the Guardian, alongside the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, last week filed a lawsuit against ICE for unlawfully withholding documents that represent a clear and overwhelming matter of public interest.” 

FOTUS ramps up deportation spectacle with new stunts and ICE funding

He only has ICE for you. And: ICE Agents Deserve No Privacy. Attempts by the public to keep tabs on ICE are provoking predictable and pathetic responses from the government.

 

MUSIC

Lou Harrison’s Pacifika Rondo

Coverville 1539: Carly Simon Cover Story and 1540: The Blondie Cover Story III

Mockingbird – Weavers Gallery

Chorale and Shaker Dance by John Zdechlik

Another Day of Sun, the opening number from La La Land.

Sit Down, John from 1776

Weird Al Medley (A CAPELLA)  White & Nerdy, Party in the CIA, Like A Surgeon, Tacky, Eat It – Jared Halley

Sussudio – Phil Collins

The Longest Time – Boyz II Men and Billy Joel

Filmmaker Ken Burns turns 70

devastating — and distressingly topical

I’ve been watching films directed or co-directed by Ken Burns, for decades.

In an interview, possibly on 60 Minutes, he noted that his academic family moved frequently, including southeastern France, Delaware, and Ann Arbor, MI.

His mother, Lyla Smith (née Tupper) Burns, a biotechnician, was diagnosed with breast cancer when Ken was three and died when he was 11. He said that circumstances shaped his career. His father-in-law, psychologist Gerald Stechler, shared a significant insight: “He told me that my whole work was an attempt to make people long gone come back alive.”

From the Wikipedia: “In 1977, having completed some documentary short films, he began work on adapting David McCullough’s book The Great Bridge, about the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge.

“Developing a signature style of documentary filmmaking in which he ‘adopted the technique of cutting rapidly from one still picture to another in a fluid, linear fashion [and] then pepped up the visuals with ‘first hand’ narration gleaned from contemporary writings and recited by top stage and screen actors,’ Burns made the feature documentary Brooklyn Bridge (1981), which was narrated by McCullough, and earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary and ran on PBS in the United States.”

The films

I saw Brooklyn Bridge well after the fact, and The Civil War (1990) ss it came out. But it was with Baseball (1994) that I fell in love with his style. Someone gave me the accompanying book, which is at arm’s length in my office.

I had to watch Thomas Jefferson (1997), Jazz (2001), The Central Park Five (2012), The Roosevelts (2012) – I even have the soundtrack),  Jackie Robinson (2016) and The Vietnam War (2017) because of my great personal interest.

Here’s the blog post I wrote about Country Music (2019).

Then Hemingway (2021), because I didn’t know much about him, and Muhammad Ali (2021), because I thought I knew almost everything about him, but I did not. Benjamin Franklin (2022) was not that engaging to me.

The U.S. and the Holocaust (2023), which I’ve begun watching, is an exciting choice. Had he not covered this territory in The Roosevelts and Defying the Nazis? But it is powerful stuff.

THR’s review called it “devastating — and distressingly topical. Burns, Lynn Novick and Sarah Botstein’s six-hour PBS documentary explores what the United States did and could have done in response to the Nazi atrocities of the Holocaust.” Here is A Conversation With Co-Directors Ken Burns and Lynn Novick On Authoritarian Parallels. A CBS Sunday Morning piece is interspersed with info re: wildflowers, but it’s easy to skip to the interview.

Ken Burns considers himself a patriot. When he appeared on Finding Your Roots in 2014,  he was pained to discover that he had a Tory sympathizer as an ancestor who fought for the British during the American Revolution.
In 2015, around the time of the rebroadcast of The Civil War, he noted on Morning Joe that the Confederate flag issue was not really about heritage.

In the fall of 2022, I received a mass email from Ken Burns.

It was a pitch to vote for incumbent Senator Maggie Hassan (D-NH) for reelection. She won in November 2022.

Country Music: Ken Burns, PBS

Can The Circle Be Unbroken?

Country Music.Ken BurnsSixteen hours of the history of country music. I watched it all. Some bits of it I knew about, but I learned a lot, especially the parts before I was born. It starts with the 1920s when the birth of radio and the growth of the phonograph record propelled country/hillbilly music as well as other musical genres.

The beginning of the Grand Ole Opry is outlined. The documentary posits that there were two early giants of country music, the Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers. Rodgers brought forth the yodel in recorded music, often replicated by others for decades. The second episode, “Hard Times (1933-1945),” touches on Gene Autry and Bob Wills.

Oddly, it was the story about the creation of the music licensing entity BMI that was a big revelation for me. It was “founded by a group of radio industry leaders meeting in September 1939 at the National Association of Broadcasters annual convention in Chicago. The move [was] prompted by ASCAP requesting to double license fees to the radio industry…”

“Hillbilly Shakespeare 1945-1953” certainly described Hank Williams, who dominates Episode 3. Eddy Arnold and Bill Monroe are also included. Episode 4 is called “I Can’t Stop Loving You 1953-1963”, which meant that it had to mention the seemingly unlikely crossover of Ray Charles. Johnny Cash, Patsy Cline, Willie Nelson, and early Elvis are some of the others highlighted.

The parts I remember

“The Sons and Daughters Of America (1964-1968)” is the title of Episode 5. Loretta Lynn, Charlie Pride, Merle Haggard, and Roger Miller are among the stars. The Beatles even get a mention with their Buck Owens cover. This is the period of my first recollections listening to WWVA in Wheeling, WV late at night.

Episode 6, “Will The Circle Be Unbroken (1968-1972),” gets into the period I was collecting music. More than one person I know discovered Kris Kristofferson from this show. Bob Dylan and The Byrds get coverage, as well as The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.

“Are You Sure Hank Done it This Way? (1973-1983)”, in Episode 7, discusses the ongoing tension between “traditional” country and countrypolitan. Olivia Newton-John beats out Loretta Lynn for the best female artist at the CMA? Highlights include Dolly Parton, George Jones, Tammy Wynette, Hank Williams Jr, Roseanne Cash, Waylon Jennings, and Emmylou Harris.

Finally, Episode 8, “Don’t Get Above Your Raisin’ (1984-1996)”, shows the development of Ricky Scaggs, Reba McEntire, George Strait, Randy Travis, The Judds, Dwight Yoakum, and especially Garth Brooks.

Among the complaints were that Burns, et al. left out any number of artists from Jim Reeves to Linda Ronstadt, while spending too much time on Johnny Cash. I suppose this may have some legitimacy. Sometimes, for licensing, artistic, or other reasons, you work with what you have. On the other hand, Marty Stuart’s knowledge of the genre continues to amaze.

The music

There’s a five-CD set of the music mentioned in Country Music. I thought I’d link to just a handful. I’m ignoring any cuts I already own, such as tracks by JR Cash, Charles, Cline, Kristofferson, Lynn, and Williams.

Can the Circle Be Unbroken – The Carter Family
Blue Yodel No. 8 (Mule Skinner Blues) – Jimmie Rodgers
Fox Chase – DeFord Bailey, the first black at the Grand Ole Opry
Mountain Dew – Grandpa Jones and his Grandchildren; by the time Jones was on the TV show Hee Haw, he didn’t need the makeup anymore

I Want to Be a Cowboy’s Sweetheart – Patsy Montana & The Prairie Ramblers
New San Antonio Rose – Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys
Wabash Cannonball – Roy Acuff
It’s Mighty Dark to Travel – Bill Monroe & his Blue Grass Boys

New Mule Skinner Blues – Maddox Brothers and Rose
Foggy Mountain Breakdown – Lester Flatt & Earl Scruggs, who I first knew from The Beverly Hillbillies
It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels – Kitty Wells
Crazy Arms – Ray Price

The Long Black Veil – Lefty Frizzell; I have The Band and Mick Jagger versions of this
El Paso – Marty Robbins
Stand by Your Man – Tammy Wynette, later covered by Lyle Lovett
Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way – Waylon Jennings

Boulder to Birmingham – Emmylou Harris
Pancho and Lefty – Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson
He Stopped Loving Her Today – George Jones
Don’t Get Above Your Raisin’ – Ricky Skaggs

Somebody Should Leave – Reba McEntire
Why Not Me – The Judds
Streets of Bakersfield – Dwight Yoakam with Buck Owens
Where’ve You Been – Kathy Mattea
Go Rest High on That Mountain – Vince Gill
I Still Miss Someone – Rosanne Cash

Ramblin' with Roger
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