Tag: Peter Sprague

Sept rambling – Bust Unions

Whispers from the Great Beyond, featuring Rebecca Jade

Amazon Is Deploying AI to Spy on Its Workers and Bust Unions Before They Form

The Secret Service: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

The Nobel Peace Prize announcement is that this year’s award went to Navi Pillay, a person of “exceptional courage” who has led accountability efforts against apartheid, prosecuted war crimes, and upheld international law for decades.  The Norwegian Nobel Committee honored Pillay, who early in her career served as a judge on South Africa’s High Court, her native country.

Being Heard Is Not Enough. As the Cornell 7 case reminds us, institutional accountability is a must

A Photo of Mussolini’s Corpse Led Page 1. How It Got There Is a Tale.

When Your Charity Dollars Go Overseas, Can You Follow the Money?

Where to Take Your Unwanted Prescription Meds – The National Association of Boards of Pharmacy (NABP) has an online tool that lets you find the closest kiosk by entering your ZIP code.

Eva Marie Saint, from the movie North by Northwest, and an Oscar winner for On the Waterfront, is dead at 102

Mike Ditka has died. He and the Bears won the Super Bowl in 1986, and after coaching, he became one of the sport’s most visible and enduring talking heads. He was 86.

70 Up and saying goodbye to the greatest documentary series of all time

Toadstools and Toxins, what’s in those “magic mushroom” gummies?

UGH

The U.S. Supreme Court granted the regime’s request to resume third-country deportations, issuing an unsigned stay of a lower-court injunction. The Court added the case to its docket and scheduled oral arguments for December.

FOTUS wrote that the White House sees anyone who says “artificial intelligence” instead of “super intelligence” as “THE ENEMY”.

FOTUS’s decision to hold an international summit at his private golf club, an idea he rejected in his first term, shows how much he has shattered norms.

He personally told an aide to use taxpayer money for TV ads praising him

The regime’s allies have sought to prove a “grand conspiracy” through a sprawling Justice Department inquiry. It has buckled under staffing shake-ups, internal disputes, and trouble finding evidence.

A scorecard from MAHA activists suggests the regime has broken most of its promises to the movement on food, agriculture, and environmental health.

GOP senator’s gotcha question blows up in his face

MUSIC

This Land Is Your Land/Power to the People – Tom Morello leads an all-star finale featuring Bruce Springsteen, Joan Baez, Dave Grohl, Dave Matthews, Stephen Stills, and more, performing live at the Power to the People Festival 2026! The whole 10-hour concert✊

My Minnesota Home – Gail Sparlin. I heard her sing this at the Reader’s Theater event in Albany, NY, on October 5, benefiting the Wizard’s Wardrobe tutorial program.

Peter Sprague Plays Whispers from the Great Beyond, featuring Rebecca Jade

Autumnal Sketch by Sergei Prokofiev

The main theme from the score to Dangerous Beauty by George Fenton

Kansas City – The New Basement Tapes

Dolly Suite by Gabriel Fauré

Teardrops – Womack & Womack

On the radio, I heard Leyenda by Albeniz. IDK who was playing, but here’s Andres Segovia. It reminded me of Spanish Caravan – The Doors

Coverville 1596: Album Anniversaries for XTC, ELO and Simon & Garfunkel

The Fall of the Leaf by Gerald Finzi

Surreptitious – Romy

Operator (That’s Not the Way It Feels) – Jim Croce 

Peter Sprague Plays The Kiss featuring Allison Adams Tucker

Favorite Songs By Favorite Artists (Series Four) #11: Elton John

NYT: My Favorite Phone Songs

Remembering when there were ‘Stax’ of soul musicians in Memphis

What Makes This 50’s Fender Precision Bass So Rare! The insane story of how Joe Bonamassa helped solve Rick Beato’s 50-year-old family mystery.

Sept. rambling: end of the American age?

Songs In The Key Of Life: The EP

AI Giants Probe ‘Tens of Thousands’ of Security Incidents—Some Involving Government Sites

At the End of the American Age

Jon Stewart: The City Began Covering Their A**es Three Weeks After 9/11

The Nerd Reich

Amazon drones are overwhelming a Texas suburb

UnitedHealthcare & UnitedHealth Group, and Brazil Elections 2026: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver;  John Oliver is a Lawsuit Gremlin, and LegalEagle loves it

The High Crime of ‘LMAO’: Cops Are Treating Flock Mass Surveillance Like a Joke

The great American road trip is in peril

Nik Durga: In defense of Mississippi, the place where I became a writer, which has a poignant mention of Emmett Till

They Kept Outsiders Away for 500 Years. Their World Is About to Change.

Meet the First Brand-New Cat Species Identified in More Than a Century

Peter Max, Trippy Artist of Counterculture Era and Beyond, Dies at 88

In Memoriam – 78th Emmy Awards

Taylor Swift joins Mariska Hargitay for a very special episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit

Bob Pettit, who was the N.B.A.’s first M.V.P., dies at 93

From MLB.com: Looking at the 2026 playoff teams, you might notice something: Three of them have never won a World Series. That’d be the Brewers, Rays, and Padres, who are three of the five teams that have never won it all. (To the other two, the Rockies and Mariners: There’s always next year.)

How One Trick Play Tells The History Of Football

Getting Rich and Going Broke, One Pack of Sports Cards at a Time

When First Comes in Third and Free Money’s Fine Print

Everything is better when you add Godzilla to it

Oy

U.S. rejects U.N. declaration on preparing for pandemics

A quiet ICE surge that unfolded “everywhere all at once” this summer

Supreme Court lets regime use flawed database for voter purges

EPA says repealing power plant emissions rules will save billions – but its estimate leaves out health and climate costs

Officials eject 750,000 people from Obamacare, claiming fraud

RFK Jr Assures Vaccine Skeptics That They Have a ‘Friend at the White House’

Kennedy Center delayed the repairs it now cites for its closure

FBI blindsided as hackers claim to steal data on ‘all employees’

Snipers and drones on his giant arch?

Who’s A ‘Communist’? Trump TV State News Channel

Unprecedented: Most Supreme Court Decisions Issued On ‘Shadow Docket’ 

Call for action on the Census 2030 plan

You may all have heard about a Federal Register Notice changing rules for the 2030 Census.

The proposed rules and a Preliminary Regulatory Impact Analysis can be found in the documents section of https://www.regulations.gov/document/USBC-2026-0628-0001

This is also where you can submit your comments and read others’ comments.

The biggest changes that might impact us all are:

  • Many residents are excluded from the count. The proposal only counts US citizens and Legal Permanent Residents
  • The proposal suggests that people should be counted where they spent most of the winter months
  • The proposal suggests not asking about race/ethnicity, but asks for comments on including a citizenship/legal status question

 Some of the potential impacts:

  • Funding inequities because of a mismatch between Census counts and numbers of people present
  • No census data on communities of color
  • Limited data for smaller communities (especially combined with the plans for a new disclosure avoidance system)
  • Lower quality population estimates and downstream impacts for survey controls, funding distributions, denominators for all kinds of rates, etc.
  • Loss of seats in the House of Representatives

A group of expert stakeholders created a website: Hands Off Our Census

There you can read all about the proposal, how you can comment, and many other resources.

MUSIC

Songs In The Key Of Life: The EP – Stevie Wonder

Dummy with a Wig on Top – Randy Rainbow

In An Autumn Garden by Toru Takemitsu 

The 1999 London West End production of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! starring Hugh Jackman

The musical Annie in Korean

Come From Away: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert (2019)

You’ll Be Back from Hamilton –  Lemon Squeezy

Coverville 1594: The Chrissie Hynde/Pretenders Cover Story IV and 1595: Tributes for Duncan Sheik, Tim Curry, and Chad Gilbert of New Found Glory

Typewriter – Brandenburger Symphoniker

Rocket “88” – Jackie Brenston, sometimes cited as the ‘first’ rock ‘n roll record, from 1951, 75 years ago

Birdland – Quarantine Big Band Helsinki 

Favorite Songs By Favorite Artists (Series Four) #9: The Pogues 

Autumn Leaves – Nat King Cole

Peter Sprague Plays Good Vibrations featuring Leonard Patton

A Town With An Ocean View by Joe Hisaishi, a cue from Kiki’s Delivery Service

Smells Like Teen Spirit – Nirvana, in honor of the 35th anniversary of the album Nevermind; also Smells Like Nirvana – Weird Al Yankovic

Footloose (dancing in the movies)

Songs Mark Evanier’s mom sang to him

Take My Breath Away – Berlin

K-Chuck Radio: What happened to Timothy?

Stuck With You – Huey Lewis and the News 

Rick Beato Finally Defeated Every Copyright Claim on His Channel (ft. LegalEagle

The Beatles UK vs. US Albums: The Compleat Chart

August rambling: Guinnevere

A David Crosby song from the first CSN album

Maps and Images Show the Devastation in Nepal’s Flooding
What the Measles Betting Market Does Not Measure. Polymarket is currently running a $7.8 million betting option on the number of measles cases in the U.S. in 2026. It runs a detailed analysis of the bets. It does not measure the real impact of those numbers.
Texas became a powerful magnet for American Muslims seeking affordable homes, good schools, and thriving congregations before Islamophobia’s rise there.
Police Chief in Mississippi Regularly Used Racist Slurs, Private Texts  Reveal. Exchanges obtained by reporters show troubling messages sent by the chief of a Mississippi police department facing an uproar over the fatal shooting of a 1-year-old boy in June.
Flock Cameras. Canoodling Lawyers. How Much Surveillance Are We Comfortable With?
States Claim to Invest in “Humane” New Prisons — But Prisons Were Never Humane
A Manhattan-Sized Ice Island Just Broke Off Greenland
Fetal Personhood and Subscriptions: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver
The biggest home shutout in 141 years
NFL eliminating Pro Bowl Games, but will still name Pro Bowlers
Sartorial observations from the Erie County Fair
Don’t Use This “Random” Password
The regime

The millstone of $40 trillion in national debt is a major contributor to the national affordability crisis. Economists Blame It on GOP Ineptitude and Tax Cuts for the Rich

The Average ACA Marketplace Deductible Grew by About $1,000 Per Person in 2026, With More Enrollees Shifting to Higher-Deductible Plans as Enhanced Tax Credits Expired. Marketplace Enrollment Could Fall to About 17.5 Million in 2026

The Pentagon Fired the Editor and Publisher of Stars and Stripes, which also claimed a Middle East correspondent. They are the Pentagon’s latest effort to diminish the news outlet’s editorial independence.
The regime is planning to remove the name of an aircraft carrier meant to honor a pioneering Black military hero, a report from CNN revealed.  The USS Doris Miller is currently under construction, but Navy leadership is reportedly discussing removing the name and possibly using FOTUS’s name on the ship instead.
Purge of Top Generals Leaves the Army Rudderless. The leadership vacuum comes as the Army is trying to adapt to a new kind of war dominated by deadly drones.
Tacky Superstore closes because the economy sucks for MAGA too
New album by Peter Sprague features Rebecca Jade

Peter Sprague Plays Guinnvere. The title track of the new album features Rebecca Jade, the first niece. Sprague: “In learning to play Guinnevere, I got a closer look into how they came up with such a unique sonic vibe. The main guitar part is played in a special ‘tuning’ that delivers gorgeous chords that aren’t available in standard tuning. I call them ‘magic chords,’ and it happens when most of the strings are not fretted and instead are ringing free. Mix that in with a few fretted notes that rub against the other notes in a good way — cluster chords as they’re known, and the whole sum sparkles in the air.  The Guinnevere recording is available at all of the streaming services, including: Spotify, Apple Music,  PS Online Store, and YouTube Music 

MORE MUSIC

I Do The Rock – Tim Curry. Tim Curry, Star of ‘Rocky Horror’ and Much More, Dies at 80

Johnny Angel – Shelley Fabares. Shelley Fabares, ‘Donna Reed Show’ Actress, Dies at 82. She also starred in Elvis Presley movies and the sitcom “Coach.”

Sharp Dressed Man – ZZ Top.  Frank Beard, Beardless Drummer for ZZ Top, Dies at 77
That’s All I Want From You – Jaye P. Morgan (1954). Mutual Admiration Society – Eddy Arnold & Jaye P. Morgan (a song from 1956 that I actually remember). Jaye P. Morgan, a Jack-Of-All-Trades Entertainer Who Was a Pop and TV Star, Dies at 94.
Favorite Songs By Favorite Artists (Series Four) #10: Camper Van Beethoven
Concerto for Marimba ”The Crossed Sonar of Dolphins” by Takatomi Nobunaga (b. 1971) 
Coverville 1590: The Ben Gibbard Cover Story II and 1591: The Tanya Donelly Cover Story
Japanese Festival Dances by Yasuji Kiyose
(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction – DEVO
K-Chuck Radio: Rare Pop Music from Western Australia
Until the Last Moment – Yanni, Live At The Acropolis, 25th Anniversary
Stairway To Heaven – Dolly Parton

March rambling: your AI slop

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

by Catbird c 2026

No one wants to read your AI slop

The $5.6 billion opening salvo: inside the staggering cost of his war on Iran
The Black Anti-Fascist Tradition Recognized That Fascism Didn’t Begin in Europe
Blowtorching the frog
USAID: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver
These Women Exposed Prison Sexual Abuse. Now ICE Wants to Deport Them.

Florida Has Deemed All Existing Intro to Sociology Textbooks Illegal

Should charity CEOs get a percentage of revenue raised?  (NO!)

How selfish are we? An age-old debate about human nature is being energised with new findings on the tightrope of cooperation and competition

Is Freedom Enough? Notes from a Community Conversation

John Green: Risk Is a Privilege
Daryl Hannah: How Can ‘Love Story’ Get Away With This?
WHCL (Hamilton College) is 85 years old

Pete Townshend and Jodie Foster Take The Colbert Questionert

Now I Know: The Man Who Shipped Himself Home and The Underground World Time Forgot and How Mickey Mouse Saved Time and The “Lion” Whose Bark Was Bigger Than Its Bite
Kelly on biscuit
Pants on Fire
From here: For the last year, [FOTUS] has told us that he’s made life safe for democracy, and more affordable and better all around. During his record-long SOTU address on Feb. 24, he told us that our economy was strong, gas prices were $1.85 a gallon, and the stock market was above 50,000 for the first time. “When I came back, our country was dead. Now it’s the hottest country on the planet,” he said in what has become the standard stump speech pickup line.
Three weeks later, the average price of gas is $3.60 a gallon. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down another 739 points Thursday at 46,677, a loss of more than 9% since the State of the Union. On Friday, it was down another 119 points, finishing at 46,558.
MUSIC
My Funny Valentine – Leslie Green (02 20 26)
Neil Sedaka, Singing Craftsman of Memorable Pop Songs, Dies at 86
Country Joe McDonald, Whose Antiwar Song Became an Anthem, Dies at 84
The Clarity of Cold Air by Jonathan Bailey Holland
Cartoon Collection – Medley sinfónico
I Don’t Wanna Know – Human Radio
Buddy Guy: Tiny Desk Concert February 27, 2026
George, Tell It Like It Is -Peter Sprague featuring Sinne Eeg
Umoja (and others) by Valerie Coleman
Objects In Mirror – Josh Ottum
Here We Go Again – MonaLisa Twins
We Can Work It Out -· Stevie Wonder

Hysteria (A Comedy Song) -Riki Lindhome

Kyrie – Mr. Mister

Desi Arnaz short (1946)

How Will I Know – Whitney Houston.

You Did It Your Way – Jimmy Fallon Serenades Stephen Colbert On The Late Show

If Stayin’ Alive Had Been Written in the 16th Century – Tabea Bös and Jonas Wolf

The Fate of Melania – A Randy Rainbow Song Parody

MORE MUSIC
K-Chuck Radio: Were the Carpenters just a great cover band?

Blackbird – Beyoncé

Coverville 1571: Cover Stories for TLC and The J. Geils Band and 1572: The David Gilmour/Pink Floyd Cover Story
Strike Up The Band (Gershwin) – Thilo Wolf Big Band
Hot Stuff and MacArthur Park Suite– Donna Summer
Texas Flood –  Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble
The theme song from the 1967 Spider-Man cartoon show – Richard Cheese and Lounge Against the Machine
Hurricane Country – Peter Sprague
Matt Forbes: L-O-V-E and It’s Almost Like Being In Love (Lerner & Loewe tune from the show, Brigadoon) and You’re Nobody’Til Somebody Loves You
Maybe I’m Amazed – Paul McCartney
Got To Get You Into My Life – Earth, Wind & Fire,
Flip Flop and Fly – Joe Turner and His Blues Kings
Ray Bolger dancing — alone and with a couple of past presidents — in April in Paris
Hello My Baby – Joe Howard on the Ed Sullivan Show, 1954
Genre Delve #13: AOR/Classic Rock

May rambling: To Secure These Rights

Charles Strouse

To Secure These Rights: The Report of the President’s Committee on Civil Rights. HARRY S. TRUMAN, The White House, December 5, 1946.

How Civil Rights Were Made—and Remade—By Black Communities In the Jim Crow South

In HR 1, the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” passed by the House of Representatives, Sec. 70302: “This section limits the ability of U.S. courts to enforce a citation for contempt for failure to comply with an injunction or temporary restraining order. Specifically, if no security was given when the injection or order was issued, the citation of contempt may not be enforced using appropriated funds. This limitation applies to injunctions or orders issued before, on, or after the date of enactment.”

The AKG Museum exhibit honoring the people killed in the shootings at Tops Market in Buffalo, 5-14-2022, including the poem Mourning Until Morning by Jillian Hanesworth

The ‘Handmaid’s Tale’ Uncensored Oral History of a Revolution

My Father Prosecuted History’s Crimes. Then He Died in One. He was a Nazi hunter — and was killed in the Lockerbie bombing. What does it mean to seek justice for his death?

Wendy McMahon Resigns as Head of CBS News: “Company and I Do Not Agree on the Path Forward”

This Channel Is Biased
A business owner tested whether customers would pay more for American-made products. The results were ‘sobering.’
Revisiting Biden’s Decline
The Long, Strange Trip of the Titanic Victims Whose Remains Surfaced Hundreds of Miles Away, Weeks After the Ship Sank
And…
Baby Is Healed With the World’s First Personalized Gene-Editing Treatment. The technique used on a 9½-month-old boy with a rare condition has the potential to help people with thousands of other uncommon genetic diseases.
John shares some extremely good news six years into Nerdfighteria’s effort to improve maternal and child health in Sierra Leone.
No One Knows When They Don’t Die
Legendary comic book writer Peter David dies at age 68
James McEachin, Star of ‘Tenafly’ and Perry Mason Telefilms, Dies at 94
George Wendt, the Beer-Loving Norm on ‘Cheers,’ Dies at 77
Discover® is now part of Capital One as of May 18, 2025
June Squibb on Her Nonagenarian Career High
Why Teacher Jamal Roberts is the New American Idol

Autocephality is a fancy word for self-governance. It’s mainly used in the context of Eastern Orthodox Churches that independently govern their spiritual affairs without a higher ecclesiastical authority.

Now I Know: It’s Not Easy Being Clean and Why Purple is the Royal Color and The Secret Code of Central Park’s Lamp Post and It’s Not Easy Driving Green

On and on…

Yes, this is Project 2025 (ft. Liz Dye)

The Greatness Paradox: His notion of national greatness is stuck in the Napoleonic Era, which is causing him to destroy everything that makes America great today.

Harvard Derangement Syndrome

Him & The Press: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

His CFPB kills the data broker rule

When He Was the One Taking Land From Farmers and How His Embrace of Afrikaner “Refugees” Became a Joke in South Africa

She Devoted Her Life to Serving the U.S. Then DOGE Targeted Her. A veteran who returned from Iraq injured and transformed, Joy Marver is now facing a crisis at home.

We’re Experts in Fascism. We’re Leaving the U.S.

Why Eliminating the NEA Would Be a Disaster For Our Country

The New DEI — Discrimination, Exclusion, and Inequity

All Hail Our Rococo President!

Strange Bedfellows and Long Knives, about the secret engine of sweeping political upheavals (like Trumpism) and their inherent fragility

 

“Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.” -Harry S. Truman, 33rd US president (8 May 1884-26 December 1972)
Heather Cox Richardson, May 23 (in part)

After S.V. Date of HuffPost noted last week that the White House had published fewer than 20% of [his] speeches, the White House has stopped publishing a database of official transcripts of [his] announcements, appearances, and speeches altogether and has taken down those it had published. Instead, it will just post videos. And yet it is publishing just a few of the videos of the president’s term: so far, fewer than 50 videos of the first 120 days of his term, according to Brian Stelter of CNN.

A presidential administration traditionally publishes the president’s words promptly to establish a record. The White House, in contrast, says removing the transcripts will enable people to get a better sense of him by watching his videos. But it’s likely closer to the truth that his appearances since he took office have been erratic, and removing the transcripts will make it harder for people to read his nonsensical rambles.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said, “The [FOTUS] White House is the most transparent in history,” but of course, it’s objectively not. White House officials have made it impossible to tell who is making decisions at the Department of Government Efficiency, for example, or who gave the order to render migrants to El Salvador. Now the president’s words, too, will be hidden.

MUSIC
Charles Strouse, Tony-winning composer of Annie, Applause, and Bye Bye Birdie, dies at 96. He’s known for such songs as “Tomorrow,” “It’s the Hard Knock Life,” “Put on a Happy Face,” and the ‘All in the Family’ theme song, “Those Were the Days.” He also wrote scores for motion pictures, including The Night They Raided Minsky’s
That’s Trump Derangement! – A Randy Rainbow Song Parody
Pamela Bondi – Marsh Family parody of The One and Only sung by Chesney Hawkes (by Nik Kershaw)

New Day Will Rise  – Yuval Raphael

Rick Derringer, a Zelig-like rocker, the guitarist, singer, and songwriter, dies at 77. Hang On Sloopy – The McCoys. Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo – Rick Derringer. Eat It – Weird Al Yankovic (Rick plays lead guitar; he produced six of Al’s albums)

Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Is In)-The New Edition, featuring Kenny Rogers

Somewhere Over Laredo – Lainey Wilson 

On an American Spiritual  by David R. Holsinger
Leucadia Uncompromised – Peter Sprague
The Firebird suite by Igor Stravinsky

Coverville 1534: Brothers in Arms Album Cover and Devo Cover Story

Look What You Made Me Do (Taylor’s Version)‎ ‎- Taylor Swift ‎ ‎
Don’t You (Forget About Me) – Simple Minds
Rod Stewart and Jeff Beck covering Curtis Mayfield’s People Get Ready
Crazy For You –  Madonna
Harry Truman – Chicago