Month: January 2025

US “Bregret” already?

The Indivisible:

As early as late November, I was reading about some voters for the Republican candidate for President feeling regret about their vote. It’s similar to how many people in the United Kingdom felt after the Brexit vote in 2016; they had Bregret.

djt has promised huge tariffs on goods from China. Somehow, Americans didn’t understand that that would likely result in retaliatory tariffs on American goods. Now, he’s suggesting a tariff on goods from Canada and Mexico, our largest trading partners, even though we are in a USMCA (NAFTA successor)  agreement that would preclude that from taking place until 2026. 

This is presumably to”teach them a lesson” about US border security. The first rule of tariff wars is that no one wins a tariff war.  If they respond in kind, which Mexico has already promised, this will increase the pain in Americans’ wallets. 

Some contractors and farmers who supported him have talked about how they don’t know what they’re going to do if half of their workers are deported.

12 People Who Had Literally No Idea What Their Trump Vote Meant.

We don’t need no education

Hey, if the federal Department of Education is eliminated – a bill to do so has already been introduced – many of its services will also disappear. That’s the subtext of this link, which notes that Oklahoma has nevertheless found money to buy Bibles, optimally for every classroom.

Now, he says he can’t promise he’ll be able to lower grocery prices. An article in WaPo, behind a paywall, is titled, “After backing Trump, low-income voters hope he doesn’t slash their benefits.” It begins:

“NEW CASTLE, Pennsylvania — Lori Mosura goes to the grocery store on a bicycle because she can’t afford to fix her Ford F-150 truck.

“The single mother and her 17-year-old son live in an apartment that is so small she sleeps in the dining room. They receive $1,200 each month in food stamps and Social Security benefits but still come up short. Mosura said she often must decide whether to buy milk or toilet paper.”

Reaganomics redux

Here’s a fun fact from Heather Cox Richardson: “Laura Mannweiler of U.S. News and World Report estimated the worth of Trump’s current roster of appointees to be at least $344.4 billion, more than the gross domestic product of 169 countries. That number does not include Scott Bessent, whose net worth is hard to find. In comparison, Mannweiler notes, the total net worth of the officials in Biden’s Cabinet was about $118 million. 

“The incoming administration will advance a different economic vision. Instead of trying to expand the economy through investment in infrastructure and manufacturing [as the Biden administration did], his team has emphasized cutting taxes for the wealthy and corporations and slashing regulations. The argument behind this approach to the economy is that concentrating wealth in the hands of investors will spur more investment while creating an environment that’s ‘friendly’ to business will create jobs.”It’s classic Reaganomics trickle-down, crony capitalism at its finest.
“Don’t test us.”
After Barack Obama was elected in 2008 and inaugurated in 2009, with solid majorities in the popular and Electoral College votes, Republicans served as the “loyal opposition.” This concept “indicates that the non-governing parties may oppose the actions of the sitting [government] while remaining loyal to the formal source(s) of the government’s power, such as the… constitution.”

I jest. The Tea Party movement simmered up in 2009, clearly a disloyal opposition designed to thwart his efforts at every turn. That he got anything done, especially after his first two years, was pretty miraculous.

Yet the message from this incoming administration and their allies is that the Democrats just should shut up, get out of the way, and let Orange be Orange. Senator Tom Cotton sent a letter to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin:  “You issued a message to the department the day after the election commenting that the military will follow ‘lawful orders’ from the new president—a thinly veiled and baseless insinuation that [djt] will issue unlawful orders.” Baseless? Eh. Yet, Pete Hegseth, the choice to head Defense, is a train wreck.

Tom Homan, the incoming border czar, “plans to bring harsh consequences to any sanctuary city leader who threatens to hinder efforts by immigration authorities from mass-deporting illegal aliens.”

djt’s sometimes wacky Cabinet nominees shouldn’t need to be confirmed by the Senate! His words should be sufficient for the process. His media censorship arsenal is growing.

Resistance

So what is the response? The Union of Concerned Scientists notes: “We—and our supporters across the country—have a vital role to play in defending the progress we’ve made at the federal level, advancing our goals at the state level, and exposing and pushing back against the abuses that are likely to come. We’re clear about the threats we face, but we must move forward with hope and determination.”  A key tenet is “Protecting democracy, state-by-state.” California is on board.

The Indivisible Guide: A Practical Guide to Democracy on the Brink is encouraging. It acknowledges the need to grieve for a while. I can’t live in despair for the next two or four years, and trust me, it would be very easy for me to do so.   I’m holding onto the frankly uncomfortable thought that there will be a backlash to higher prices and other bad outcomes.

I know that some people are not there yet. Heck. I may not be there myself, but I pride myself on hoping I’ll get there eventually because the alternative is too dismal. There needs to be a response to what Cornel West called “American gangsterism crystallized, honest about itself, unashamed and bold.”

‘A Day of Love’: The president-elect and his allies have spent four years reinventing the Capitol attack — spreading conspiracy theories and weaving a tale of martyrdom for their ultimate political gain.

UPS delivery change request

UPS My Choice

Have any of you experienced this? I placed an order with an online vendor, not Amazon. Soon, I got an email from UPS saying, “You’ve Submitted a Delivery Change Request,” which I had not made.

The message body reads, “Hi, We’ve received your delivery change request. You asked us to Deliver to a new address.” I did no such thing. 

When I first received one of these notices, some years ago, I had to join UPS My Choice and add a delivery location. Before it closed, I had designated the CVS at 1026 Madison Ave., the closest venue to my house, to hold my package. Then, I changed it to the CVS at 1170 Western Ave., which closed on December 12.

I’m often home

I usually get the package, but on at least one occasion, I did not. I had ordered a book called Knife by Salman Rushdie from the publisher or the distributor, but they couldn’t deliver it for some reason. The book was returned to the publisher, and I got my money back without asking.

Still, I don’t understand why certain packages couldn’t be delivered to my house. A few I know were pretty darn large, and maybe they were afraid of porch pirates. Though we’ve gotten heavy Chewy deliveries directly to our house, many were small compact discs or books.

There seemed to be no correlation between the package size and whether they could send it to my house directly or a secondary location. 

Have you experienced this? I’m confused. I tried to ask the UPS bot the answer to my question, but it doesn’t seem to understand what I’m asking. Meanwhile, I need to change my secondary address to yet another location. Oh, goody.

SCAM

I regularly get an e-mail a text message saying US post: “You have a USPS parcel being cleared due to the detection of an invalid zip code address. The parcel cannot be cleared. The parcel is temporarily detained. Please confirm the zip code address information in the link within 24 hours.”

The link that starts with usps.com and then has some junk noise after it JLKNU.TOP.  Then it says, “Please reply with a Y, then exit the text message and open it again to activate the link, or copy the link into your Safari browser and open it. Have a great day with the USPS team.”

Sometimes, it has a phone number associated with Nigeria. Please leave me alone, spammers. I’ve reported this as junk several times, and it has not gone away.

The #1 hits of 1905

remember me to Herald Square

Here are the #1 hits of 1905. Since there was no Billboard or comparable charts, how is that possible? Joel Whitburn’s Pop Memories 1890-1954 gives due credit to Jim Walsh. He is “the world’s leading authority on the pioneer recording age.” His columns in Hobbies magazine ran “a remarkable 40 years.”

The Whitburn book also notes:  We compiled charts for those years by incorporating various surveys and sources, notably the Talking Machine World periodical, offered monthly listings of all popular records released starting in 1905 and frequently provided information on the hottest current hits, although not in charge chart form.”

“In the early decades of the 20th century, a song’s popularity was measured by its sales of sheet music and recordings… nearly every department store in five & dime, in addition to music shops, sold sheet music to the day’s top hits. Annual sheet music sales were approaching 30 million by decade’s end. A driving force behind these sails was the ubiquity of pianos in middle and upper-class American homes.”

The songs

The Preacher and the Bear – Arthur Collins (Edison), 11 weeks at #1, gold record. It is listed as a comedy record. It is… of its time.

Yankee Doodle Boy – Billy Murray (Columbia), eight weeks at #1. You’ll recognize part of this. He was The Biggest Star of the Phonograph Era.

In The Shade of the Old Apple Tree – Irving Gillette (Edison),  seven weeks at #1

In My Merry Oldsmobile – Billy Murray (Victor), seven weeks at #1. These were still the early days of the automobile industry in the United States.  I’ve heard this song!

Give My Regards to Broadway – Billy Murray (Columbia),  five weeks at #1. I had forgotten how old Broadway was until my daughter and I went to the Museum Of Broadway earlier this year.

Where The Morning Glories Twine Around the Door – Byron Harlan (Columbia), 5 weeks at #1

Come Take A Trip In My Air-Ship – Billy Murray (Victor), four weeks at #1. Air-Ship, just two years after the Wright Brothers flew in Kitty Hawk

Dearie–  Corinne Morgan and Hayden Quartet (Victor), two weeks at #1

ARA: newspaper route

“newspapers were wildly profitable”

My first Ask Roger Anything questions come from my dear friend Cecily:

Did you have a newspaper route in your youth?

I had a route delivering the Evening and Sunday Press in Binghamton, NY. I’m not positive of the time frame, but it would have had to have been after July 1965 because I subsequently joined the Capitol Record Club. One of the first things I purchased was Beatles VI, which came out that month.

Moreover, I would have had to have been delivering the paper in December 1966 because my father helped me on Sunday Christmas morning, something he never did before or after.

I didn’t make a whole heck of a lot of money. My route ran from the corner of Oak Street and Clinton at a barbershop to a large apartment complex called the Dwight block on Front Street and McDonald Ave., which surrounded a Front Street store called Henry’s.  So monetarily, I did OK on Clinton, took a bath financially on the Dwight block, but did very well on McDonald Ave,  from which you can see the Chenango River.

(BTW, the newspaper delivers don’t have to try to collect the money anymore; the newspapers do that.)

I should note that I inherited the route from a guy from my church named Walter Jones, who was a couple of years older than me. He was my parents’ godson. His grandparents, the Whitfields, were my godparents. His aunt (his mother’s sister), Mrs. Hamlin, was the organist at my church and tried to teach me how to play piano. 

First Ward

We were all in a very small geographic area. Walter lived on the corner of Everett and Elm, one block from Daniel Dickinson School, which we attended. Trinity AME Zion church was about three blocks from his house and a block from mine.

Not incidentally, I later inherited Walter’s job as a page at the Binghamton Public Library under the guidance of a woman named Beccye Fawcett, who attended my church. I believe that she was the first black librarian in Binghamton.

Walter’s daughter is Amanda Jones, who is a well-regarded composer in the television and film industry.

If so, did you have one of those strapped canvas carriers, especially for Sunday editions?

Yes, I did have one of those, but I seldom used it, and never on Sunday; the thing hurt my shoulder. Instead, as I indicated recently,  I often used a shopping cart.

There are reports that even as newspapers are delivered, and fewer are in the carrier, it seems to get HEAVIER!

How can that occur?

I had not heard that, and I can’t find any verification. Based on the last ones I’ve seen, the merged Binghamton newspaper feels unsubstantial even on Sunday. Moreover, newspapers are generally shrinking in width. 

CHQ

When my wife and I went to Chautauqua in the summer of 2024, journalist Margaret Sullivan noted that at the end of the 20th century:  “At the time, newspapers were wildly profitable because advertisers had few ways to target their potential customers. But competition, first from Craigslist, hurt the bottom. Eventually, Facebook, Google, and others circulated the expensive-to-create news content for free, and this gutted newsrooms.”

Print subscriptions have decreased since 1990, though online subscriptions have been rising. 

Here’s some trivia: “The most massive single issue of a newspaper was the 14 September 1987 edition of the Sunday New York Times, which weighed more than 5.4kg (12lb) and contained 1,612 pages.

Based on ads, finding people to deliver the paper has been harder, even as fewer people buy the physical object. Our delivery people are adults with cars because the geographic range of physical subscribers is much larger than when I was young.

Even though it’s not the advertising Mecca it used to be, potential LLCs must still run ads in New York State. The newspaper is still the place for obituaries, especially on Sundays, even though they are expensive and can often be accessed online. 

Random 2024 post

Lempicka

This is the random 2024 post. I randomly pick the blog post date for each month, and then, within that post, randomly select a sentence. I’m sure I purloined the idea from near twin Gordon.

A serious blogger like Kelly would review his output and highlight his favorite and/or best work from last year. This is a great idea, but it would involve actual labor.

January: “Even though it’s an online bank, there are plenty of ways to access your money by visiting any of the over 40,000+ ATMs in the Allpoint network.” At the end of December, I got a Visa credit card from Varo in the mail. It was sent to our home but addressed to someone we never heard of, and we’ve been here for over two decades. I later suspected that when I lost my wallet in the autumn of 2023, the person who found it (but did not return it) ordered a Varo card to be sent to my address and figured they could remove it from our mailbox. Ha! Our mailbox has a lock. 

February: “Still, I didn’t bother voting for her because 1) she’ll get in without my help, and 2) she has a five-octave voice, which she often uses unnecessarily to the music’s detriment.” Why I didn’t vote for Mariah Carey for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on the fan ballot. 

March: “Bob Marley: One Love, Directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green.” It was the last film I saw at the Spectrum 8 Theatre before it closed. Fortunately, it reopened a few months later under different management. 

April: “The Average Body Temperature Is Not 98.6 Degrees” Linkage. 

Politics

May: “Jay Bernhardt, the newly installed president at Emerson College, got an earful about the arrest of more than 100 protesters at the Massachusetts campus.” About the pro-Palestinian demonstrations.

June:  “[Lauren] Blackman and [Nicholas] Ward met in a production of a Broadway musical called Lempicka, which had previously played in Williamstown, MA, where it went through several revisions, and La Jolla, CA.” A concert that was part of the Albany Symphony Orchestra’s American Music Festival. 

July: “It [Project 2025] claims that “centralized government ‘subverts’ families by working to ‘replace people’s natural loves and loyalties with unnatural ones,’ utilizing the biblical language of natural versus the unnatural.” I mentioned Project 2025 at least a half dozen times. 

August: “’The authors’ thesis is that the business world has a well-worn playbook that they roll out whenever anything that might cause industry to behave even slightly less destructively is proposed.'” Linkage about Corporate Bullsh*t: Exposing the Lies and Half-Truths That Protect Profit, Power, and Wealth in America.

How am I?

September: “My wife has some dry eye issues, so she’s become an expert at eye drops.” My end-of-summer health report.  

October: “One in three tree species at risk of extinction: report.” A linkage post. 

November: “Merry Christmas Darling – Carpenters (1970) – Only vaguely familiar.” This is the first of my holiday music posts.

December: “The play Titus Andronicus by Shakespeare, which I think I had to read in college freshman English class, was a bloody piece that frankly bored me.” A Sunday Stealing about books. 

So it’s reasonably representative. There’s Sunday Stealing, which I completed over 40 times during the year. Ah, three musical posts, which I did at least once a week. I hit three linkage posts, which I do two dozen times a year. Also, I mentioned politics, movies, and a day in the life. 

The picture of my kid was also randomly selected from the pictures I used in 2024.

Stats
My stats are consistent month over month, except for December, which had twice as many visitors and thrice the number of views. Rebecca Jade and the Dave Koz Christmas Tour 2024 (Dec 12) pumped up the number of views I got. However, Random Christmas stuff (Dec 17) surprised me by boosting the number of visitors.
Posts & pages for 2024; the most popular
Ramblin' with Roger
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