April rambling: Beat the Broligarchs

Rod Serling documentary

Catbird: “When I viewed it again, it looked like a heart that had been run over by a tire, which reflected my yet-unrealized reaction to what DOGE had just started. My conscious mind didn’t know yet, but my hand did. What a revelation!”

Patriotic Millionaires challenge oligarch power with sweeping economic plan: How to Beat the Broligarchs

EFF’s lawsuit against DOGE will go forward. ”Sweeping and uncontrolled access by DOGE agents who were not properly vetted or trained.”

Did you hear Canadians are wearing MAGA hats?  There, they mean Make
America Go Away

Working to Preserve .Gov Websites. “Web archiving is more than just preserving history—it’s about ensuring access to information for future generations. “

Tuberculosis Is Back in the Spotlight. Does the U.S. Even Care?

Buster Keaton made a silent film AND a talkie … in 1965

Lucille Ball – ‘America Alive!’ 1978 [Interview]. from that, a viral clip: When Lucy said, “Take your hands off her, David.”

Val Kilmer, An Unclassifiable Heartthrob Who Always Had an Edge

Jay North, Child Star of ‘Dennis the Menace,’ Dies at 73. He was best known for playing the towheaded Dennis Mitchell on a sitcom that ran on CBS from 1959 to 1963, which I watched.
Goodbye Park City: Sundance Film Festival Heading to Colorado

Does ginger ale really taste better on a plane?

When You’re Better Off Skipping a Court Date and The Cat That Inherited Millions and The Man Who Takes Apostrophes Very Seriously

Until then…
Appeals Court Orders Thousands of Voters to Verify Information in Contested N.C. Election. The ruling was a win for the Republican who narrowly lost a State Supreme Court race in November. The case has tested the boundaries of post-election litigation.
His order on voter policy could disenfranchise millions, but multiple lawsuits have already sprung up to challenge it.

DOGE Is Not Cutting Government Spending

Judd Legum on Popular Information: “Musk has set a goal to cut $1 trillion annually from federal spending through DOGE. But his efforts have largely ignored the DoD, according to data compiled by the Musk Watch DOGE Tracker.”

HHS Job Cuts: Entire CDC Team Focused On Infertility And IVF Is ‘Gone’

Not to mention…

States Challenge Trump’s Effort to Dismantle Library Agency. In a lawsuit, 21 state attorneys general argued that the steep cuts to the Institute of Museum and Library Services violate the Constitution and other federal laws related to spending. Call on Congress to Protect Federal Library Funding

Smithsonian’s Chief in the Hot Seat. The executive order demanding change at the institution presents a perilous test for Lonnie G. Bunch III, its secretary, whom the White House calls a partisan Democrat.

‘It’s a shambles’: DOGE cuts bring chaos, long waits at Social Security for seniors. “Elderly and disabled people — and those who care for them — are encountering a knot of bureaucratic hurdles and service disruptions… ‘The system, it’s broken down,’ Veronica Sanchez, a 52-year-old medical practice manager in Canoga Park, said, after calling a Social Security hotline and waiting on hold for six hours.”

FOTUS Is Trying to Axe Collective Bargaining for 1 Million Federal Employees

LA Times: Regime “has issued an order demanding that all national parks remain open amid severe staffing shortages — an action that one conservation group called ‘reckless and out of touch’ as park personnel brace for millions of visitors this summer.
‘I was a British tourist trying to leave the US. Then I was detained, shackled and sent to an immigration detention centre’

Trans Athletes and Tasers & Excited Delirium: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

Another rupture: Keystone pipeline shutdown threatens fuel prices and exposes pattern of failure

Critic’s Notebook: ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ and Trump, Reunited

An Experiment in Recklessness: The global trading system is only one example of the administration tearing something apart, only to reveal that it has no plan for how to replace it.

Tariffs: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver 

What to Learn (and not Learn) from Trump’s Tariff Blunders

Jon Stewart on The Botched Tariff Rollout & The Stock Market’s Meltdown | The Daily Show, especially from 15:35 to the end

He’s not very bright; Inside his dumb lifelong obsession with tariffs and trade deficits

Why Lutnick Displaced Musk As ‘Most Loathed’ Adviser. Lutnick: “The army of millions and millions of human beings screwing in little screws to make iPhones — that kind of thing is going to come to America.”

I don’t make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.– Will Rogers

Former President Harry S Truman appeared on Jack Benny’s television show in 1959, when the show was filmed from the Truman Presidential Library in Independence, MO.
Was Binghamton unavailable?

Rhode Island plays a starring role in the forthcoming Rod Serling documentary:

“The state’s Film & Television Office… touted how the Ocean State is playing a starring role in a forthcoming documentary on the life of Rod Serling, the legendary mastermind and iconic narrator behind the pioneering, 1950s and ‘60s science-fiction television series, ‘The Twilight Zone.’

“The film, authorized by Serling’s two daughters, Jodi Serling and Anne Serling, is being produced by Verdi Productions, an East Greenwich, R.I.-based production company. State officials announced… that Leonardo DiCaprio’s company, Appian Way Productions, has also joined the production…

“Although Serling, who died in 1975 at the age of 50, hailed from upstate New York, the documentarians used locations in East Greenwich, Providence, and Wakefield — the village in South Kingstown, R.I. — to help recreate moments in Serling’s life, ‘mirroring the same cinematic black and white style’ of his signature show, officials said.”

MUSIC

My Spine Is The Bassline: Dave Allen (1955-2025)

Fees, Fees, Fees – A Randy Rainbow Song Parody

Everybody Plays The Fool – The Main Ingredient

Lonely -Justin Bieber & benny blanco

Locust Laced – Sleigh Bells

Manic Monday – Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day feat. Susanna Hoffs of The Bangles

The Lady of Shallot – Loreena McKennitt

Coverville 1528: The AC/DC Cover Story IV and 1529: The Pixies Cover Story III

Girl – Beck

The Parables by Bohuslav Martinů

We Got The Beat – The Go-Go’s

Chuck Mangione’s Land Of Make Believe

Fool In The Rain  – Led Zeppelin

Sergei Rachmaninoff Vocalise

The Bank of Harmony with a medley of three Hanna-Barbera theme songs

All Day and All of the Night – The Kinks

One More Night – Phil Collins

What A Fool Believes – The Doobie Brothers

William Tell Overture – Rossini

National Museum of African American History and Culture

A Fool’s Errand

On Tuesday, August 5, we took the DC Metro from Alexandria, VA, to the primary goal of the trip, the National Museum of African American History and Culture. I had supported the museum financially since before it opened, but neither my wife nor I had been there. Conversely, our daughter had been there twice before. We ordered tickets online about a month earlier. They were free but scheduled for a specific time of entry.

I won’t describe the first display now because it requires a longer discussion. After I read a book I bought about it, maybe I’ll have a better handle on it.

I spent a lot of time looking at the sports section. It showed how complex the arena was. For instance, world heavyweight boxing champion Jack Johnson fought former champ James F. Jeffries, the “Great White Hope,”  in 1910 in “The Fight Of The Century.”  After Johnson won, several dozen black people in various communities were killed because white people were rioting in America.

Conversely, Joe Louis needed to give champ James Braddock ten percent of his earnings for a decade to fight Braddock for the championship in 1937, a fight which Louis won.

Reckoning: Protest. Defiance. Resilience. was very powerful. To no surprise, I was intrigued by Musical Crossroads.

How did this get built?

Other aspects of that museum were interesting, including the story of its very existence.

Not coincidentally, just before our trip to DC, a friend gave us a copy of A Fool’s Errand: Building the National Museum of African American History and Culture in the Age of Bush, Obama, and Trump by Lonnie Bunch, the founding director of the facility and now the 14th Secretary of the Smithsonian. After visiting the place, she appreciated the detailed narrative in the book more.

I saw Lonnie Bunch interviewed by Gayle King at the Apollo Theater in NYC in 2019.

Day two

The daughter returned to Albany on Wednesday, but my wife returned to the museum and started literally at the bottom. It is a powerful and occasionally overwhelming history of African Americans in the United States. See how many people were enslaved by European countries.

The year 1808 was significant. ” “Act Prohibiting the Importation of Slaves” took effect in 1808. However, a domestic or ‘coastwise’ trade in slaves persisted between ports within the United States, as demonstrated by slave manifests and court records.” Breaking up families was even more likely.

We ate at the museum both days. Much of the food is quite good, though a bit pricey. To avoid the lines, get there as close as possible to the 11:30 dining opening.

The one minor disappointment was that the signs suggested a centennial celebration of James Baldwin, though the author was well-represented in this and other Smithsonian facilities.

Museums: African Art, Hirschhorn

Botanic Gardens

About a week after my wife and I returned from Chautauqua in early August, we, plus our daughter, took the trains down to Washington, DC, to visit museums and do the tourist thing.

The trains went from Albany/Rensselaer to NYC/Penn Station and then from Penn to Alexandria, VA. Alexandria is only one stop from DC’s Union Station, and there’s a layover there, so it was a toss-up whether we should have stopped in DC and then caught the DC Metro. But that would have necessitated schlepping our luggage. We arrived on a Sunday.

We stayed at my MIL’s timeshare, a Wyndham property in Old Town Alexandria. It was pretty decent, and it was convenient to catch both the Amtrak and the DC metro to Washington, specifically the Smithsonian stop on the Blue Line.

We took the Metro to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art on Monday, August 5. Our daughter wanted to go there, but I knew almost nothing about it. It was a very interesting place. The recently installed Benin Bronzes have an exciting history. I particularly liked Before Nollywood… The Ideal Photo Studio. It is about photography in Nigeria before the movie boom of the 1990s.

Above is a picture I took in the elevator of some of the things shown at the museum. Below is a piece called Dwellers in the Space of the Unknown, which intrigued me. 

I heard music in the gift shop, which I liked. It was Kids African Party. I find most music for children insipid and boring, but this was entertaining enough for me to purchase.

Museum #2 

After a meal at a nearby restaurant, we went to the Hirschhorn Museum. A couple of pieces struck my fancy: a comparison between a 19th-century white artist and a more contemporary black artist.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In this case, it’s two oil on canvas pieces. Mrs. Kate A. Moore (1884), painted by John Singer Sargent (1856-1925), is hung next to Cobalt Blue Dress (2020) by Ghanaian artist Amoako Boafo (b. 1984). 

I conversed with one of the young staff members about why one would redo an existing painting. We talked about contextualization. I might compare it with the idea of watching Hamilton and revisiting American history.

I also saw this particular egg tempera on fiberboard item, a piece I did not know. But it reminded me so much of the musical/movie Cabaret that I assumed it was created in the 1930s. It is George C. Tilyou’s Steeplechase Park (1936) by Reginald Marsh (1898-1954).

The most fascinating room is Four Talks, designed by musician and artist Laurie Anderson. I don’t recall the raven, parrot, or canoe, but the room is still oddly disorienting but fascinating.

Greenery

Then we walked on a hot day in DC, probably in the 90s (32+C).  We went past the Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial to the United States Botanic Garden. Two things: I had gone there in 1998 when I tried out for Jeopardy in DC, and I always thought it was the Botanical Garden.

Across the street from each other are two different gardens and a building with various kinds of plants, some climate-controlled. The place had a powerful environmental message; it was where I dropped off my recyclable but not returnable water bottle.

At one display, patrons were asked about food, specifically what food reminded them of home. Mine were pork chops, mashed potatoes, and peas from growing up.

Book review: We Return Fighting

Shaping African American identity.

We Return FightingWe Return Fighting: World War I and the Shaping of Modern Black Identity is a physically beautiful book. It was published by The Smithsonian National Museum of African American History in 2019. It was a century after black soldiers returned from the war overseas only to fight a different type of battle at home.

One of the ongoing themes in the tome is the fact that black soldiers served the United States, in part, to try to prove yet again their worthiness as citizens. As in most previous conflicts, black soldiers were assigned to segregated units. They were often relegated to support duties rather than direct combat, at least at first. Given the opportunity, though, they often shone as warriors, even underequipped.

Specifically, in WWI, blacks in the military received the respect they deserved from French allies but not their US comrades. This disconnect incentivized them to return to the states and continue the fight for their rights. Black soldiers and black citizens on the home worked to lay the framework for advances in the civil rights movement.

There are scads of photos and illustrations of significant people and artifacts. In other words, it is the history of the black soldier from the Civil War forward. We read also about the horrific Red Summer of 1919 when black veterans were particularly targeted by the Ku Klux Klan and other racist entities. The war and its aftermath shaped African American identity.

Over There

An interesting paradox for me: the book discussed World War I broadly far more than I expected or was especially interested in. Yet I learned a great deal about the great world war. Notably, it was the event that first made the United States a world power.

The book appears to be an outgrowth of the We Return Fighting exhibit at the NMAAH that closed on September 6, 2020. But you can still see elements of that show. I am a founding contributor to this museum, and I hope to visit it someday. My daughter, BTW, has been there twice.

Incidentally, there was a 2002 book called We Return Fighting: The Civil Rights Movement in the Jazz Age by Mark Robert Schneider. I have not seen it.

 

Lonnie Bunch III: A Fool’s Errand

Creating the National Museum of African American History and Culture

A Fool's ErrandI got an email notice in mid-August. Gayle King, from CBS News, and Lonnie Bunch III were going to discuss Bunch’s new book, A Fool’s Errand: Creating the National Museum of African American History and Culture in the Age of Bush, Obama, and Trump.
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It would be at the legendary Apollo Theater in New York City, a legendary venue I had never been to. And it was free. On October 1, I took the 12:10 Amtrak train from Albany/Rensselaer down to Penn Station on 34th Street. The #2 subway to me to 96th Street, with the hotel I stayed at less than a block away.

Around 5:30, I decided I’d better leave for the 7:30 gig. I took the subway to 125th Street and walked the block and a half to the Apollo. After purchasing and eating a sausage sandwich from a street vendor, I went to the theater. There was already a line, though it was only 6 pm.

Hey, I have a ticket, so I’ve got time. I wandered around the neighborhood. The percussionists were playing in front of the Adam Clayton Powell Jr. governmental building. 45 minutes later, the line had only grown by about a dozen people.

I got a decent seat on the aisle at about 7. But the show didn’t start until about 7:45 when Gayle King came out on stage. She introduces a three-minute video about the African American museum. Then she introduces the man who, in June 2019, was named the head of ALL the Smithsonian museums, libraries, the National Zoo and more.

Lonnie Bunch III

Lonnie Bunch was born to the Smithsonian. New Jersey-born, his family traveled down to North Carolina to see family. Lonnie’s father made excuses for why they couldn’t stop at some of those Virginia museums. But they stopped in the various Smithsonian museums because they were safe and welcoming places for everyone.

Creating the new museum was a tremendous amount of work for over a decade. It was important to him and others that it be located on the national mall, not plopped in some out-of-the-way geography. He received contradictory advice, that the museum should highlight the holocaust that was slavery, and that he should not mention black bondage in America at all. He opted for inclusion.

Bunch endured a lot of work, not always fruitful. One major company asked for a meeting with him, made him wait for a couple of hours. Then the corporate representative acknowledged that they weren’t REALLY interested in contributing anything. Bunch decided to avoid the newspaper headline, “Smithsonian director punches out executive.”

Even when successful, it was a tough process. To bring in a Jim Crow railroad car was a logistical nightmare; one did not want to blow up DC.

The museum was interested in getting Chuck Berry’s guitar. He was willing to throw in his car too, which Lonnie didn’t get, but his staff did. Berry wanted to renege on the deal when he discovered Bunch worked for the federal government, which he doesn’t trust. But Bunch’s aide sealed the deal when, at Berry’s insistence, he ate 13 ice cream sandwiches.

Miles and miles

National Museum of African American History and Culture
Much of what was added to the collection came from items from people’s attics and basements. At someone’s suggestion, Bunch pitched the museum as a sort of African-American Antiques Roadshow, with the “appraised value” measured in historical, not monetary value.

One man in Philadelphia had 33 pieces, mostly previously unknown objects in the life of Harriet Tubman. The guy would punch Bunch every time he offered a piece. How much did the man want for the collection? “Shake my hand and it’s yours.”

The director learned to hate traveling. He made 497 trips in ten years, some for fundraising, others for adding to the collection. He got an eight-dollar shoe shine in Dallas once, and the proprietor said, “Give the money to the museum.” Lonnie objected, but the man said, “Don’t be a jerk.”

Bunch had wanted President Obama to do the ceremonial first shoveling. Obama’s staff insisted that the President “doesn’t do digging.” He actually would have. After that, Barack and Lonnie communicated directly. Obama supported the project, in part because of what it would mean to his two daughters. Lonnie wondered what A Fool’s Errand it would have been had the museum opened in 2017 rather than 2016.

At the dedication, musician George Clinton performed. He was, unsurprisingly, taking an illegal substance. There was a LOT of security around, Lonnie mentioned. But George can’t perform without it. The headline “Smithonian director arrested for drug possession” was somehow avoided.

Open for business

The National Museum of African American History and Culture has been very successful in its three years, with about 8000 people visiting each day, and more on weekends. Though the museum is free, it requires tickets so that people aren’t waiting in the hot sun all day.

The tickets can be hard to get. A woman claimed to be his girlfriend in the 7th grade. He remembers who he liked then – “Joanne!” But it was such a “good lie” that he got the woman tickets anyway.

People see attending as a pilgrimage. About a third of the attendees had never had been to another museum before. There are about 3500 items on display at any time, out of 40,000. Some artifacts go out on loan to other museums. The goal is to “help the country to find itself.”

A woman in the museum told her son about Medgar Evers, the slain civil rights leader. Another woman thanked the mom, who demurred that she was just telling the history. The other woman revealed that she was Medgar’s daughter.

Bunch became good friends with the mother of Emmett Till. After the museum, which holds his remains, she told Lonnie that he needed to carry on Emmett’s legacy; two days later, she died.

An American story

When the museum was completed, Lonnie Bunch III cried. He never wanted to quit, though. There’s a picture of a formerly-enslaved woman holding a hoe that he has in his office. He figures if she can persevere, so could he. As someone put it to him, the goal is to make his ancestors smile.

My goals are two: to buy and read the book A Fool’s Errand, and to visit the museum. For while I’ve been a charter member of the facility, I’ve never been there. My wife has never been there. My daughter has, and she’ll be returning next year; I’m a tad jealous.

Ramblin' with Roger
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