Ramblin' with Roger

Mail delivery still sucks

Book reviews for March 2026 at the APL on Washington Avenue

Yes, my mail delivery still sucks. A couple of weeks ago, my wife and I saw a mail truck on our street. She started to feel elated. I said there was little correlation between seeing the vehicle and our receiving mail; sure enough, nothing in our mailbox. A couple of days earlier, I saw a mail truck on my block, actually three doors down, and a package was delivered there. Indeed, I received a package recently, on a day when we received no other mail.

My wife recently spoke to a postal worker who knows about this problem, and the worker feels terrible about it. They are not allowed to work sufficient overtime to rectify the problem. So it is not a problem just in my neighborhood, but in several locations.

I received mail on Thursday, Feb 12, then on Thursday, the 19th, and, shockingly, on Saturday, the 21st.

A Facebook buddy of mine writes: Join me, if you wish, in raising the alarm. When someone asks, “Is anyone getting mail?” respond with the following:

+++ They’re trying to break the Postal Service and sell it off to private corporations.

I also believe they are making it harder to have mail ballots counted in elections.

Here’s a complaint letter that you can copy and send to the Postmaster. Postal carriers (mailmen) are asking us to raise the issue so they can continue delivering mail! +++ https://tinyurl.com/where-is-my-mail

Oh, and here’s a piece from WNYT, Channel 13, from Tuesday, February 17, on the topic, featuring, er, me.

FFAPL

The Tuesday book reviews are at the 161 Washington Avenue branch of the Albany Public Library at 2 pm in the large auditorium.

March 3 | Book Review | Emmy Noether — Mathematician Extraordinaire, a biography by David E. Rowe. Reviewer: Jonathan Skinner, PhD, amateur classicist & mathematician.

March 10 |Book Review | Coney Island: The People’s Playground by Michael Immerso. Reviewer: Donald “The Soul Man” Hyman, teacher, actor, singer. writer, TV host/producer, & veteran.

March 17 | Book Review | The Sisters, a novel by Jonas Hassen Khemiri. Reviewer: Elissa Kane, a seeker, an organizer, a teacher, & an artist, who has worked in libraries & our state & city governments.

March 24 | Book Review | The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom by Don Miguel Ruiz. Reviewer: Ezra Scott, Jr., MA, MBE, is a native of Niagara Falls, NY, a public servant, an educator, & the proud father of Khari C. Scott & Ezra P. Scott III. (Rescheduled from December because of a snowstorm.)

March 31 | Book Review | Why Weren’t We Told? A Personal Search for the Truth about Our History by Henry Reynolds, a prize-winning Australian historian. Reviewer: Tom Ellis, educator & activist.

Sunday Stealing – I Say, You Think

Blues Brothers, Beach Boys, and especially Elton John

Welcome to Sunday Stealing. Here we will steal all types of questions from every corner of the blogosphere. Our promise to you is that we will work hard to find the most interesting and intelligent questions. Cheers to all of us thieves!

This week, we’re playing word association as suggested by a blogger named Dawn Camp. She said these words “tickled her fancy,” and let’s see if they inspire you. Feel free to answer with either a single word or a thought/memory. It’s up to you.

I Say, You Think: Word Association. Share what comes to mind when you hear the word …

1. Biscuit: I think it’s curious that the US definition and the UK definition are so different. The UK definition seems to be some sort of cookie and the US has a soft, savory bread thing. The US biscuit you might have with gravy, but especially, it’s the basis of strawberry shortcake. I believe I have never made biscuits, except when I’ve used products like Bisquik; it’s not that I couldn’t, but I’m too lazy to try.

MUSIC –Rubber Biscuit by the Blues Brothers, and specifically the phrase “What do you want for nothin’, Rubber biscuit?”

Coloring

2. Crayon: I invariably think of Crayola crayons. I remember when you would get something with more than eight or 16 crayons. A 64 crayon set was wonderful. Some color names seemed to have gone by the wayside. From this history: “In 1962, partially in response to the U.S. Civil Rights movement, Binney & Smith changed the name of Flesh to Peach.”

3. Warmth: I think of a weird thing I got from the Vlogbrothers for Pizzamas, which is like a robe. It’s very warm, it’s very cuddly.

MUSIC- The Warmth Of The Sun by the Beach Boys, which is lovely.

4. Flip: I think of the late comedian Flip Wilson. Flipping pancakescan be an art. The Summer Olympics have a lot of impressive flips, although I’ve seen some pretty impressive flips in these Winter Games.

MUSIC – Chug-A-Lug by Roger Miller, with the lyric, “I done a double back flip.”

5. Slush – I think of the weather on Friday the February 20th. It varied tremendously: a little bit of snow, a bit of sleet. I shoveled the walk in the afternoon, and it was pretty clear, but by the evening, when we had to go out, there was slush all over the sidewalk.

Cooling

I also think of slushies, this ice thing with supposed fruit flavors. The last time I went to the urgent care place, in early December, I had a terrible sore throat. I was tested for Covid and the flu, and both tests came back negative. But I felt so dreadful, I didn’t go to choir rehearsal that week. The Urgent Care place had a slushie machine, which I usually pass on, but that day my throat really wanted one.

6. Wing -Chicken wings I never really liked all that much. They seem like way too much work – too much bone and not enough meat

MUSIC – I think of Wings of A Dove by Ferlin Husky and Little Wing by Jimi Hendrix. Then there’s Paul McCartney’s post-Beatles band Wings; here’stheir massive UK hit that was a bust in the US, Mull Of Kintyre.

7. Candle: Ash Wednesday was this past week, and on the table, a slew of lit candles. Most of them were actually votive-looking things, though a few were little electric candles. There’s a guy whose first name is the same as my middle name; he and I were blowing out all the candles after the service.

MUSIC – Candle In The Wind by Elton John; he originally wrote it about Marilyn Monroe. He subsequently rewrote it in honor of Princess Diana in 1997, which became a massively successful record, 14 weeks at #1 in the US.

8. Cinnamon: I think a lot about cinnamon toast. It’s cinnamon mixed with some sugar sprinkled on buttered toast; amazingly good-tasting stuff when I was a kid. I like cinnamon swirl pastries to this day.

MUSIC – Cinnamon Girl by Neil Young from his second solo album. I love the handclapping. throughout one of my favorite Neil Young songs

More voices

Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody

In July 2025, there was a series of five free Water Music New York: More Voices festivals in upstate New York. The final day, in Saratoga County, concluded with an Albany Symphony Orchestra concert that” featured the world premiere of a composition by Daniel Bernard Roumain, inspired by the legacy and life of Solomon Northup.”

There were several preliminary activities, including Songs of Freedom with the Underground Railroad Education Center. Frankly, I don’t recall what tunes were actually sung that day, but they picked from a selection that included:

By The Waters Of Babylon; here’s a text

Keep Your Eyes On The Prize (text, music)

I’m A Rollin’

His Dream Is Living On (Battle Hymn of the Republic)

Soldiers for Freedom (We Are Climbing Jacob’s Ladder

Go Down Moses

Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody

Oh Freedom

It’s frankly weird that these songs are still relevant in the struggle for equality.

My favorite song in the genre this century is Mavis Staples’ 99 and 1/2

Sometimes I weep

measles, ICE detention

When I read stories about preventable chaos in the US, I sometimes feel enraged. But sometimes I weep.

As I read that the regime has, per the LA Times [paywall likely], “reversed the U.S. government’s longstanding scientific conclusion that planet-heating pollution seriously threatens Americans, erasing a foundational piece of the country’s efforts to address climate change,” I fret, What kind of country are we leaving my daughter? I cry a bit.

“The repeal of the 2009 endangerment finding — a conclusion based on decades of science that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare — represents one of the biggest environmental rollbacks in U.S. history…” One of? Then I get ticked off again.

ICE detention

Democracy Now highlights “The Children of Dilley.” “That’s the title of a new ProPublica investigation into the South Texas Family Residential Center, a sprawling ICE detention complex in the town of Dilley, a few dozen miles from the southern border with Mexico. It’s run by the private prison company CoreCivic. Dilley was first opened by the Obama administration in 2014.”

It’s a place “where families describe horrific conditions inside, such as being served contaminated food, with children and parents at times finding worms in their meals. Lights are reportedly left on for 24 hours a day. [It] detains an estimated 3,500 people, more than half of them children.

“There are also mounting reports of psychological abuse by guards, some of whom have allegedly threatened families with separation. ‘Many of the children who are now being sent there are being arrested by ICE around the country, and some of them, like Ariana, have been living [in the U.S.] for years,’ says Mica Rosenberg, investigative reporter at ProPublica.”

Sadism makes me weep.

Measles

What REALLY did me in, though, was a story in The Atlantic. I don’t currently have a subscription, but there is a feature called “One Story to Read Today” that “highlights a single newly published—or newly relevant—Atlantic story that’s worth your time.”

The title was This Is How A Child Dies Of Measles by Elizabeth Bruenig. From the excerpt: “You don’t want to worry your daughter, so you try to sound calm when you call the pediatrician and describe her symptoms at a rapid clip. The receptionist responds gently, types swiftly, and then pauses. Are your children vaccinated? she asks. Her tone is flat and inscrutable, but you detect an undercurrent of judgment. You wince and tell her the truth. No, you say, no vaccines. She puts you on hold.

“While you wait, you take your son out of his high chair and wipe his runny nose with his bib. The receptionist is back. She asks if you can be at the office within the hour. In an even, professional voice, she gives you a number to call as soon as you arrive, but tells you to stay in your car. The doctor, she says, will come to you.”

And then

“You’re there in 30 minutes, unshowered and wearing sweatpants, with your daughter bundled up and shivering in her pajamas and your son fussing in his car seat. You call the office. From the car, you cannot see the sign on the pediatrician’s office door instructing patients with a list of symptoms, like your daughter’s, not to come inside. Flashes of the pandemic play back as you see the pediatrician and two nurses approaching in the rearview mirror wearing N95 masks. It hits you: This is not the flu. This is not chicken pox. This is serious.”

If that isn’t gutting enough to make me weep, there’s a twist.

This is exhausting, enervating stuff.

Cruelty Is The Point: Mr. Brunelle

Robert Waldo Brunelle Jr re FOTUS

When my daughter helped me clean my office, she found an unused $25 Amazon gift card. Rather than let it go to waste, I bought Cruelty Is The Point, a Collection of “Mr. Brunelle Explains It All” cartoons. (This is not to be confused with The Cruelty Is the Point: Why Trump’s America Endures by Adam Serwer (2022).)

Robert Waldo Brunelle JR is “a painter, book illustrator, kinetic sculptor, retired art teacher, and political cartoonist.” Specifically, “I am a 7th-Generation Vermonter, born in Rutland in 1958. I am a descendant of William Brewster of the Mayflower and count among my ancestors a Great-Grandfather, Great-Great Grandfather, and Great-Grandmother who were all artists.

“My strip, Mr. Brunelle Explains It All, appears weekly in Seven Days VT, and monthly in Funny Times and on this site.” The strip began in 1997. When Mr. Brunelle posts his comics on Facebook, I repost north of 95% of them. It explains the current situation we find ourselves in quite cogently across four panels.

In his introduction to Cruelty, he writes correctly that the content is “‘ripped from the headlines,’ for your amusement.” Well, it’s not always amusing; sometimes it’s maddening. But it always has a heaping helping of truthfulness.

Relevant

He notes a particular felon, I mean fellow, “has kept all of us political cartoonists rather busy lately, and I churned hundreds of ’em in 2025. For this book, I selected 50 that I thought would remain relevant for a while (unlike other types of cartoons, political cartoons have a very short “shelf life,” alas.”

While this is generally true, the primary subject and his clown car of supporting characters – Stephen Miller, Pete Hegseth, and Jeffrey Epstein’s ghost, among them – are such cartoons that, months after their original appearance, their narratives are, unfortunately, not dated.

In case I haven’t sufficiently conveyed Mr. Brunelle’s political leanings, he writes: “We must laugh to keep from crying during these trying times, so hopefully this book will help you cope with the dystopian hellscape that is Trump’s America. Enjoy!”

Unfortunately, he indicates that the book is only available on Amazon, as are his previous works, including There Will Be Pain (2024) and Perpetual Panic Attack (2023). This may be stronger because the target is so much a cartoon. (Someone should update his Wikipedia page.)

Condolences

I was very sad to read that Mr. Brunelle’s beloved wife, Grace, who occasionally shared his cartoon pages with him, died on February 6. Here is her obituary and a link to the Facial Pain Association. “Facial pain can be a debilitating experience for many people, and there are numerous types of facial pain with a variety of possible causes. Precise diagnosis is crucial in determining an effective treatment. The journey to diagnosis and pain relief can be a long and winding road.”