March rambling #2: Vitiligo As Body Art

This Article Won’t Change Your Mind – “The facts on why facts alone can’t fight false beliefs.”

To End Hate, We Gotta Walk the Talk – Aristotle on Why Professing Liberal Values is Nowhere Near Enough

Door-Busting Drug Raids Leave a Trail of Blood and When a no-knock drug raid ends in death, is it capital murder or self-defense? Two cases in Texas took different paths

This Is How Your Hyperpartisan Political News Gets Made

Meet The Homeless Man Who Stopped Thousands Of People Becoming HIV-Positive

Is America’s Military Big Enough?

Amazing Disgrace: How did a thrice-married, Biblically illiterate sexual predator—hijack the religious right?

When He Is Ignorant of His Own Ignorance

Elmo From ‘Sesame Street’ Learns He’s Fired Because Of Budget Cuts

“PrOtEsT” – Poet Activists Throughout the Years

How the Choctaws Saved the Irish

Waiter fired after asking Latinas for ‘proof of residency’ at upscale Huntington Beach eatery

War On The Moon

In the Congressional Fight Over Slavery, Decorum Went Out the Door

Scott Pelley is pulling no punches on the nightly news

For 15 Years, New Orleans Was Divided Into Three Separate Cities

This is what happens to your body when you stop having sex

7 Tips to Get Someone with Alzheimer’s to Take a Bath

First-year residents shadow nurses in effort to better understand, foster future communication

List of inventors killed by their own inventions

Lack of Oxford Comma Could Cost Maine Company Millions in Overtime Dispute

Sweden is tackling its throwaway culture

Six Bad Ass Librarians from Pop Culture

The True Story of the Backward Index

Ask A Cartoonist: Women Who Inspire

Rest in peace, Chuck Barris

Rules for the Black Birdwatcher – With Drew Lanham and Extreme Birdwatching

The 21 most spectacular theaters in the U.S.

Vitiligo As Body Art

Troy native making movie about his hitchhiking adventure – Don Rittner

How Jaquandor made Gluten-Free Fried Chicken

Amtrak snow-motion

A STREET CAR NA_ED DESIRE

Now I Know: The Haircut that Went to War (Maybe) and What They Did Not See and Why People Originally Didn’t “Like” Cigarettes and The Invisible Wall Around Most of Manhattan and The Masterpiece Hidden in Plain Sight

Music

Before and After Chuck Berry and 15 great covers of Chuck Berry classics

Makeba – Jain

Bohemian Rhapsody Played by 100+-year-old fairground organ

10 Female Jazz Musicians You Need To Know

K-Chuck Radio: Feeling kinda “horny”

A New Thelonious Monk Album Emerges From the Soundtrack to a Classic French Film

Godsmack Play A Cover Of ‘Come Together’

Paul McCartney’s “Ram” Reconsidered

Lightning Strikes – Klaus Nomi (1981)

Understanding Deal Breakers: The Psychology of Music and Romance

February rambling #1: Bowling Green Massacre

At the Intersection of Love, Faith and Holy Outrage: The Women’s March and the Gospel

Angela Merkel is now the leader of the free world – the US President’s sole ideology is corporate autocracy with a populist facade

More than half of his voters say the nonexistent Bowling Green Massacre is proof his immigration ban is necessary. BTW, it never happened, and Kellyanne Conway’s remark wasn’t a slip of the tongue, as she has said it before

DMV Glitch Registers Green Card Holders to Vote

Yes, honorably-discharged veterans of the U.S. military have, under certain circumstances, either received deportation orders or been deported

If You Liked the Inquisition, You’ll Love the House Science Committee

How Each Senator Voted on Trump’s Cabinet and Administration Nominees

How to Become a Paid Protester

Americans Now Evenly Divided on Impeaching 45

American Hot Dogs

“At the Intersection of Love, Faith and Holy Outrage: The Women’s March and the Gospel”

51 Immigrant Poets – An interactive map on the ‘Muslim ban’

Irwin Corey (1914-2017), who I last wrote about here

Suzanne Pleshette would have been 80 this year

Richard Hatch, RIP – I probably watched Battlestar Galactica, but I definitely saw him in The Streets of San Francisco

RIP Adele Dunlap, 114, oldest American

Bald men look more successful, intelligent and masculine. science says – well, duh
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Scathing Orange poem wins New Zealand competition

Paul Rapp’s New England Patriots connection

Amy Biancolli: it’s the best story pitch, the best, everyone thinks so

The ‘Mary Tyler Moore’ Show That Wasn’t: How CBS Refused to Have the Actress Play a Divorcee

New blogger: Tracy Brooke’s Travels, a woman from Atlanta now in Indonesia

Could Dogs be the State Vegetable?

NEW DC COMIC REINVENTS SNAGGLEPUSS AS ‘GAY SOUTHERN GOTHIC PLAYWRIGHT’

Now I Know: Why the U.S. Government Really Wants Some People To Take Vacations and The Man Who Gets Lots of Credit and Do You Want to Burn a Snowman? and The Trickiest Tongue Twister and Why In America, It’s Typically Free to Go Pee

Watching popcorn pop

Black History/Black Recency

Stories for “Black History Month – You can freely use AwesomeStories’ vast archive to explore the topic throughout February– This issue features people who: helped to overthrow slavery and “Jim Crow Laws”; helped to free and inspire millions of Americans; helped to forge a new path forward for their country

Louisiana kid’s ‘School to Prison Pipeline’ project

Who Gets to Be African-American? An Academic Question

I Shouldn’t Have To Learn Black History From A Movie

HOW AUTHOR TIMOTHY TYSON FOUND THE WOMAN AT THE CENTER OF THE EMMETT TILL CASE

A History Of Black Cowboys And The Myth That The West Was White

Jesse Owens Was Brave – So Were These 17 Other Black Olympians

At her first recital, 12-year-old Nina Simone refused to start singing after her parents were moved from the front row to make room for whites

The Racist Super Hero Who Never Made It

Music

“That Day In Bowling Green” written by Dave Stinton

Emo prez

Stevie Wonder, Tom Petty, Lorde Lead New Orleans Jazz Fest

Coverville 1157: Hollies and CSNY Cover Story for Graham Nash’s 75th and Our House – Graham Nash

Tom Jones And Janis Joplin – Raise Your Hand (1969)

Coverville 1158: Guns N’Roses Cover Story II

Jazz Legend Al Jarreau Dead at 76. Here’s Eight Performances That Show Why He Was the Greatest Male Jazz Singer of His Time

Asia singer John Wetton married Syracuse woman just 2 months before dying

Smoothing over rough edges with friends

The metamessage received may be, “She doesn’t think I know how to dress myself, take care of myself.”

Chris wants to know:

How do you smooth over rough edges with friends? Do you ignore it, broach the subject, etc.?

It depends on what the topic is. Next question.

OK. But it’s true. What’s the issue at stake? Sometimes, you just let it go, and sometimes you say something. If you say something, you need to use “I” sentences, such as “I am not comfortable when you run over Bernie Sanders supporters.”

Is it an online dispute over politics? Those are usually in the “let it go” category. You’re not going to convince them, and they surely aren’t going to change your mind. Unless they’re otherwise abusive – “How can you think like that, you skank?” – move on.

I will say that if it’s really bugging me, NOT saying something almost never works. The issue metastasizes into a much bigger deal.

I’ve been reading the book “I Only Say This Because I Love You: Talking to Your Parents, Partner, Sibs, and Kids When You’re All Adults” (2001) by Deborah Tannen, which I am enjoying, and it has applicability to non-family relationships. I’m only in the part where she lays out the problems; I trust there are solutions coming. She notes the fact that, in many conflicts, there’s the message and the metamessage.

A simple example would be when someone suggests that you do something differently, wear more fashionable clothes, e.g. The message the sender thinks she’s giving is “I’m a good friend/relative, just trying to be helpful.” The metamessage received may be, “She doesn’t think I know how to dress myself, take care of myself.” And when more than two parties are involved, in sharing secrets and creating alliances, it gets even trickier.

So I tend to tread lightly. Humans are tricky. Humans online are even complicated than humans face-to-face, when you can pick up nuance.

This usually works; I’m still friends with people I went out with. Sometimes it does not work. Interestingly, Facebook is useful in connecting, or reconnecting, with people whose friendships might otherwise have lapsed, so there’s that.

Have you ever written poetry? When? Did you ever show it to anyone?

I went out with a published poet in the late ’70s and early ’80s. So I would go to the workshops. I tried writing a few and shared them with the group, but fundamentally, I just didn’t get it, and that was fine; I have other skills.

What’s your favorite tradition at your church?

I suppose it’s the raised candles while singing the third verse of Silent Night in an otherwise darkened church on Christmas Eve.

November rambling #1: Theodosia Burr

I have a lot of Leonard Cohen songs, Hallelujah, Suzanne, and Bird on a Wire, among them, that others have covered.

Analytical Grammar: Homophone graffitil
Analytical Grammar: Homophone graffiti

Why many Americans don’t see Donald Trump as racist

So You Want to Wear a Safety Pin

1st woman elected to Congress, in 1916

John Oliver: School Segregation and Multilevel Marketing

6 Million Lost Voters: State-Level Estimates of Felony Disenfranchisement, 2016

Do You Understand the Electoral College? You should read all of AmeriNZ’s posts this past week, e.g. Fixing the Electoral College, which mentions my favorite fix, Instant Runoff Voting

Trump was unfamiliar with the scope of the president’s job when meeting Obama

Prince Ea: I JUST SUED THE SCHOOL SYSTEM and Dear Future Generations: Sorry

How Teens In The Balkans Are Duping Trump Supporters With Fake News

How Andy Borowitz explained the election to his six-year-old daughter – (NOT fake news)

A 1922 New York Times article about Adolf Hitler catastrophically misjudged the authenticity of his anti-semitism

Writer too strong to live, about sports, sexism and alcohol (HT to Jaquandor)

Deepika Padukone on depression

The men feminists left behind

A Teaching Moment on Sexual Assault and It’s hard to talk about, but it happens to so many women and Reasons So Many Guys Don’t Understand Sexual Consent

Top African American environmental leader faces racial incident in Adirondacks – Aaron Mair, who I have met, is the president of the Sierra Club

Gwen Ifill, longtime PBS news anchor, died after a battle with cancer – she was 61 – made me feel surprisingly devastated

Four-color Christ Jesus

Glenn Beck tries decency

Amy Biancolli interview in Widows and Widowers Magazine

The Dramatic Life and Mysterious Death of Theodosia Burr. The fate of Aaron Burr’s daughter remains a topic of contention

Race-Conscious Casting and the Erasure of the Black Past in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton

This black woman rode across America in 1930. On a Harley. In spite of rampant racism, she was ‘very happy on two wheels’

snow-duck

Trevor Noah wasn’t expecting liberal hatred

You’ve Just Crossed Over Into … the Rod Serling Gazebo

Ira Gobler and the Star Wars Toys That Never Were

Norman Rockwell Museum Presents Hanna-Barbera: The Architects of Saturday Morning, through May 29, 2017

My Poetic Side: favorite war poets, each related to a different war and ordered chronologically, from The American Civil War to the Iraq War.

Presidential candidates in comic books

Robert Vaughn, Man from UNCLE actor, dies aged 83. I used to play the spy show with sister Marcia. I played Napoleon Solo, the Vaughn role.

Now I Know: Fool Me Twice, Plane on You and Going to Venus in Peace and May The Force Be Costumed and Smell Ya Later?

Doing the Write-In Thing (ROG reference)

Music

Jean Sibelius and the virtual national classical music work of Finland; here’s Finlandia

Mozart Requiem

K-Chuck Radio: Draw that bow, my son…

Jazz ‘Hot’: The Rare 1938 Short Film With Jazz Legend Django Reinhardt

Bohemian Rhapsody performed by excerpts from 260 different movies

An Hour of Jeopardy Think Music

16 Albums That Changed The Music Business

Master Recordings — From Abbey Road to Born to Run — Could Be Lost Forever, Without Archivists’ Help

Copland’s Fanfare: The making of a musical monument

Leonard Cohen died at the age of 82 and hugely influential singer and songwriter’s work spanned nearly 50 years; his 2008 induction to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame; two of of my favorites are this and this

Leon Russell died – His 2011 induction to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

The Greatest Invention of One Thousand Years Ago

The 10 Greatest Double Albums In Rock History – you WILL guess most of these

The “432 Hz vs. 440 Hz” conspiracy theory

The Upper Crust of Music

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