January rambling: lethologica

civic ignorance

Why Your Brain Blanks on Familiar Words. This phenomenon is often referred to metaphorically as something being on the “tip of your tongue,” but the technical term is “lethologica.”

Global Economy could face a 50% loss in GDP between 2070 and 2090 from Climate shocks, say actuaries

1.21.25 Sermon by The Right Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde at the Washington National Cathedral

How Hitler Dismantled a Democracy in 53 Days: He used the Constitution to shatter the Constitution.

There’s No Place for Politics at the Bedside — When bias or prejudice intersect with power, terrible harm can ensue.

Jules Feiffer, Famed Cartoonist and ‘Carnal Knowledge’ Screenwriter, Dies at 95. In the day, I bought the Village Voice in no part for his cartoons.

Cecile Richards, Former Planned Parenthood President, Dies at 67

David Lynch, Visionary Director of ‘Twin Peaks’ and ‘Blue Velvet,’ Dies at 78

Joan Plowright, Venerable Legend of the British Stage, Dies at 95

Cancer deaths are down, but cancer in women and young people is up

Everything is on fire

Filmmakers Offer Old Location Photos to Help Fire Victims — And Prove Insurance Claims

Popeye, Singin’ in the Rain, Sound and the Fury: Welcome to the Public Domain

First-timers Ichiro, CC, and elite closer Wagner were elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Yeah, for Billy Wagner

Photo: An Evergreen Snowflake

20 Defunct U.S. Airlines You Might Remember Flying; I flew on five of them

Baldoni v. Nicepool: How the ‘Deadpool’ Character Entered the Legal Fray

The Little Mermaid home video cover scandal
Ross Ulbricht, Pardoned Silk Road Founder, to Speak Out in Surprise Documentary

Now I Know: China’s City of Ice and Fan Mail for the Spam King? and And Here Comes the Pizza, and Homer Simpson is Not a Murderer

FOTUS: hardly a complete list

 Vision for a “Golden Age of America”: Oligarchy Plus Ultranationalism

He Is Exploiting ‘Civic Ignorance’

How He Will War With Hollywood While Swiping All Its Tricks

Immediately reminding America of his pettiness and fragile ego

End of Birthright Citizenship? (ft. Liz Dye)

Withdrawing from the Paris Agreement (Again): What This Moment Means for Climate Action

Schools, Churches, and Hospitals Aren’t Off-Limits to Immigration Police

Federal health agencies — HHS, CDC, FDA, NIH — are instructed to pause all external communications, including weekly scientific reports, health advisories, data updates, and other information. 

The HHS website scrubbed for the word “abortion,” and ReproductiveRights.gov — a site the Biden administration launched after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade — is now a broken link.

Admin halting of EPA limits on PFAS in drinking water 

The Groundwork for Transgender Military Ban

A WHO Exit Is a Huge Mistake

An Executive Order Sets Out What Could Be a Road Map for Retribution. The order is titled “Ending the Weaponization of the Federal Government,” but it asserts that the Biden administration might have acted illegally and directs agencies to seek evidence.

We’ve become that S***hole Country

The Floridazation of America

TV Ratings: Trump’s Second Inauguration Down From 2017 (and 2021) in Early Numbers

INFLATION

From Facing Out: The Week’s Most Interesting News from Behan Communications, which I read regularly –

AGE OF GRIEVANCE: Those are the words Richard Edelman, chief executive of the eponymous global communications firm, used to describe the conclusions of a worldwide survey of 33,000 people that found an unprecedented lack of faith in governments, business leaders, and the media, Bloomberg reports. Three-quarters of respondents across 28 countries said they worried their pay would not keep up with inflation, and 60 percent worried about job losses…

PRICE SHOCKS: The combined threat of mass deportations with new tariffs could make many fresh fruit and vegetables luxury goods that are priced out of the reach of many U.S. consumers. That’s the conclusion of Harvard researchers who examined the potential impacts if those threats are carried out, based on an analysis of how fresh produce is grown and harvested and who is doing the work…

Regardless of how this issue plays out, get ready to pay a lot more for your daily coffee — double-digit inflation looms for coffee drinkers in early 2025, Bloomberg reports. “Given the lag between wholesale and retail prices, the cost of your cup of morning heart-starter could increase by at least 20% to 25% in the next few months,” writes Javier Bias, whose specialty is energy and commodities.

MUSIC

Garth Hudson, Organist for The Band, Dies at 87. Chest Fever – The Band.

Angelo Badalamenti: Twin Peaks Theme

David Lynch and Karen O: Pinky’s Dream

Nina Simone: Sinnerman

Brian Eno – Prophecy Theme (From “Dune” Soundtrack)

Walk This Road – Doobie Brothers, ft. Mavis Staples

Mad World  – Michael Andrews (feat. Gary Jules)

Peter Sprague Plays Spain (mas tempo)

Even If – Danny Farrant

Coverville 1518: The R.E.M. Cover Story V and 1519: The Elvis Presley Cover Story IV

Taking Chances – Marimo

Jim Croce

The Dirty Dozen Brass Band – The Flintstones Meet The President

Downtown in four languages and a remake – Petula Clark

Mention My Name In Sheboygan – Dick Van Dyke, Shirley Jones, Pat Boone

Tabuh-Tabuhaby by Colin McPhee

Crowded House – Don’t Dream It’s Over

Set Out Running – Neko Case

The Rhythm of Life is from the musical Sweet Charity. Performers are from the BBC series Strictly Come Dancing

Hazy Shade of Winter – MonaLisa Twins

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious backwards

The Battle Of Prague by Frantisek Kotzwara

Movie review: A Complete Unknown

Timothée Chalamet as Bob Dylan

My wife and I went to the Spectrum Theatre in Albany to see A Complete Unknown at a Saturday matinee in late December. I asked the cashier whether people approached them and sang the title. They said a few did because they were trying to remember the film’s name; rather than saying, “Oh, the Dylan film,” they dug up the line from Like a Rolling Stone. The theater was quite full, with most patrons appearing to be eligible for Social Security.

It isn’t easy to analyze the film without the big caveats that many have already shared about the chronology and veracity of what happened to Bob Dylan between 1961 and 1965.  Characters are combined, and events happen in different order. What DID Pete Seeger feel about Dylan “going electric”? (Pete has long suggested that the distorted sound, not the volume, bothered him.)

All I can do is evaluate the film I saw. I liked it quite a bit, and my wife, who is a bit younger than me and not as immersed in early 1960s folk/pop music culture, also enjoyed it.

Timothée Chalamet did a credible job as Dylan or an element of Dylan. The movie’s Dylan seems to have been consistently oblique about his upbringing. His first girlfriend in New York City, Sylvie (Elle Fanning), complained that he’d never discussed it. Dylan pointed out that we’re all reinventing ourselves. 

So it was with the real Bob, from his white face paint in the Rolling Thunder Revue in 1975 to his religious era in the late 1970s and beyond.

Edward Norton did a wonderful job as Pete Seeger. Boyd Harrison was an adequate Johnny Cash, more with the swagger than the voice. Monica Barbaro was a pretty good Joan Baez; I think, in some ways, she had the hardest job of all since, to my ear, Joan’s is wonderfully specific.

A fan

I’m a big fan of these artists. I have a lot of Dylan, as well as several albums of Dylan covers, including this one. To be honest, seeing him in 2008 was rather unsatisfying.

Joan’s Best of Joan Baez album on Vanguard in the early ’60s was pivotal in my understanding of folk music. My father, sister Leslie, and I sag So Soon In The Morning from that album.  I saw her sing at the 1998 Newport Folk Festival. Recommend: the documentary I Am A Noise. About A Complete Unknown, she said that she didn’t have to see the film: “I lived it.”

My father owned the Pete Seeger album We Shall Overcome, Live from Carnegie Hall (1963). It got played a lot and had a huge effect on my father. I saw Pete sing in person probably three dozen times, mostly in the Mid-Hudson. One day, he performed at anti-war rallies in New Paltz and Kingston, NY.  I even spoke to him once at an anti-Springboks demonstration in September 1981 in Albany.

While I watched his ABC TV shows in the 1960s and 1970s, I rediscovered Johnny Cash in the mid-1990s through his American Recordings.

The color green + healing

Lumpy

Captain_kangaroo
Mr. Green Jeans, Captain Kangaroo, 1960

Jessica Kantrowitz has a Substack. Her recent “free-write Friday” prompt was  “The color green + healing. You can interpret the prompt however you like.”

“(Adjust to your own preferences.) Sit with a notebook or device and set a timer for 20 or 30 mins. Write whatever comes to mind, either as random thoughts (journaling style), a poem, or a short story. Don’t worry about spelling or grammar, just put words on the page.”

Okay, I will free associate here.

Growing up with the name Green was an interesting experience. On the phone, I would say my name as Roger Green: “Roger, R-O-G-E-R; green, like the color.” About 10% of the time, people would ask, “Is that with an E at the end?” and I would say No. I thought “Green, like the color,” was a clarifying statement. Yet, it seemed to confuse people about 10% of the time.

Growing up, I lived in a green house with asbestos siding. The worst thing about it, besides the possible carcinogenic impact, was that if you happened to rub against it, it really hurt. You could get a nasty little abrasion on your arm.

Neighbors

Down our little one-block, 16-address street, Gaines Street in Binghamton, NY, there was a family named Greene with an E at the end. Their house was white, but it had green trim. We would get their mail a fair amount, and they got ours; fortunately, we are very friendly with each other. The kid over there, Danny, would sometimes come over and play in our backyard. We had a very small backyard; there wasn’t much greenery.

When I wanted greenery, I usually went to Valley Street Park, a few blocks away, where a ball field was located. I’d also go to Ansco Ball Field. The easiest way to get to Ansco from my grandmother’s house was to cut through Spring Forest Cemetery, which had great greenery among the headstones.

I most appreciate cities when they have greenery. I like Recreation Park in Binghamton,  Central Park in New York City, Washington Park in Albany, Central Park in Schenectady, and various other parks I’ve been to. Parks and greenery make a place feel civilized, something that tames the urban concrete jungle. I need greenery.

Every time I saw stories about Baltimore in the news, I noted the lack of trees, at least in the urban areas. This made the streets feel not only barren but hot.

I like trees. When I was a kid, there was a chestnut tree on Spruce St, about halfway between my grandmother’s house and ours. I would collect the chestnuts, keep them for several months, and then throw them away in the spring. I liked to collect them, appreciating the smooth feel of the chestnut. It was comforting.

TV

As a kid, I used to watch Captain Kangaroo. There was a character named Mr. Green Jeans. An inordinate number of people used to refer to me as Mr. Green Jeans; I think it bugged me when I was much younger, but I became rather insulated from it over time. Hugh “Lumpy” Brannan played the character. I always look for green characters on TV; Green Hornet, which I watched a bit, featured Van Johnson as the title character and Bruce Lee as Kato. Later, of course, there was Kermit the Frog.

When I was 25, I worked as a bank teller for about a month. I didn’t love the job, but I learned to keep the greenbacks in the right order. They are always facing up and in the same direction. I implemented this process at the comic book store where I used to work, FantaCo.

The other day, I was at the grocery store. This guy approached me and said, “Hey, would you like to help me buy this piece of food?” It looked like sushi or something, and it cost $7.99, and I said sure. I bought it, and the guy waited at the exit. I handed the food off to him. It was no big deal. When you’ve had periods of not having the money, you can become very sensitive to making it available to others if you can afford it.

The weird thing about that particular day is that, as I walked out of the Price Chopper parking lot, I saw lying on the ground a $5.00 bill and three $1.00 bills—$8, exactly what I had spent on this guy’s sushi. So, it turned out to be not only a kind act but one that cost me absolutely no money.

I think that’s enough of this; it’s an interesting exercise.

ARA: the Presidents

undeniable

Kelly, that guy from western New York, asked several questions, two about the Presidents.

One scenario I had in mind when Biden was elected was that he would serve two years–essentially steward the country through the worst of COVID and get the economic recovery going–and then step down, making Harris President. Should he have done so? Would Harris have done better as an incumbent?

One thing I know about Joe Biden is that he is a traditionalist regarding the presidency. Barring extraordinary circumstances, such as severe illness, he would never serve two years and then resign. Only one president in our history resigned from office: Richard Nixon in 1974, less than two years after Joe became the US senator from Delaware.

Moreover, if he had announced too early that he would quit after two, any chance of his agenda being acted upon would have been almost impossible to achieve. I suppose he could have done it secretly and then announced it after the midterms of 2022.

However, completing a president’s agenda in the best situations takes time. There are negotiations to be had, and much of what he achieved was in the latter half of his term. I noticed that FOTUS felt entitled to do everything on Day One, but he didn’t even have his cabinet in place on January 21st.

Secondly, I don’t think he would have ceded the presidency to Kamala Harris in 2022. Many people, including me, thought she was a terrible candidate when she ran for president in 2020. Heck, her campaign didn’t even make it to the election year; she started it in 2019 and ended it in 2019.

HHH redux

Moreover, in 2022, she would have been burdened by immigration and inflation worse than in 2024. Conversely, the Biden support for Israel in the Gaza war harmed her greatly. It would have been like Hubert Humphrey running against LBJ’s Vietnam War in 1968; it would have been even more difficult for Kamala to separate herself from Joe.

She was a much better candidate than I anticipated when she ran in 2024. Still, many people hated the process of her becoming the Democratic nominee; even people I know IRL, who probably voted for her, were appalled by the manner in which she became the pick.

I have intimated before that it would have been a better choice for Joe to decide to be a one-term president much earlier. There have been willing, “successful” one-term presidents before. The most noteworthy in terms of his agenda was James Knox Polk (1845-1849), who managed to win the Mexican War and expand our manifest destiny. I’m not saying this is good, merely that he was triumphant at it.

His inner circle ultimately served him poorly by trying to manage his physical decline. As Dean Phillips suggested, Biden should have stepped down around July 2023. Then, there would have been a primary process that most Democrats would have embraced.

(BTW,  my candidate would have probably been Pete Buttigieg because he spoke so well to the rightwing news crowd, going on their shows regularly; he was like the “FOX whisperer.”)

All that said, I’m not sure that ANYONE could have beaten FOTUS unless the man were indicted shortly after January 2021. Jack Smith’s much-too-late report proves clearly that he was the felon we all knew he was. “But for [his] election and imminent return to the presidency, the office assessed that the admissible evidence was sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction at trial,” the report states.

AotD

On November 22, 2024, Senator John Fetterman told ABC This Week’s Jon Karl: “You have a singular political talent [in FOTUS]. It’s undeniable. …if you’re not afraid to say all of those things, or, and after you survived an assassination, you literally were shot in your head and had the presence of mind to respond, ‘fight, fight, fight.’

“I was driving home from Indiana County (PA) at nine o’clock, and there was a Trump superstore on the side of a road, nine o’clock on Friday night, and people are buying swag. And that really crystallized in, at the assassination [attempt]… the day or two later, you start seeing people wearing shirts with that iconic picture. And, you know, the energy and the anger and, it’s like, wow, I really thought — in fact, I thought that might be ball game.'”

So, FOTUS has mastered the Art of the Deal, in which January 6, 2021, was a stroll through the Capitol. His pardon of the J6 insurrectionists was the final nail in the gaslighting coffin.

“They’re eating their cats” is merely Orange hyperbole. Yet I read how he picks out the lies and errors of others. Joe LIED about not pardoning Hunter. He was wrong about the fact that the Afghan Taliban wouldn’t take over Afghanistan that quickly.

Part of the reason is that many Americans, especially men, preferred Ben Shapiro, “Joe Rogan, Tucker Carlson, YouTube, and X over the mainstream media,” where Biden and Harris largely operated.  

Perhaps it’s a function of what author Jianwei Xun, in his book about FOTUS and Musk, calls Hypnocracy, a “new form of social control… that… induces a permanent functional trance through algorithmic modulation of collective consciousness… In the era of post-truth and artificial intelligence, power no longer operates through repression but through the manipulation of reality perception.” 

When this question came in, my daughter and I watched the 2005 Charlie the Chocolate Factory movie with Johnny Depp. She suggested that the children that Willy Wonka selected were like FOTUS. Much of the American public was like the indulgent parents who capitulated to their noisy brats.

BHO

What WERE 45 and Obama saying to one another at President Carter’s funeral, anyway?!

“Donald, you know that I think you’re a dipwad. But you’re gonna be president again, much to my consternation. [FOTUS laughs]. So you’re in ‘the club.’ Let’s get together and have a rational conversation somewhere about why you shouldn’t undermine the Panama Canal treaty or blow up NATO by seizing  Greenland and threatening Canada. Hey, if these actions don’t happen, people will think all of this is bluster and that you’ve ‘grown’ into the presidency. This could help your historical reputation!”

Lydster: making my life brighter

office chair

lampsMy daughter has been making my life brighter for two decades, but right after Christmas, it wasn’t merely a metaphor. My wife and I had gone out to see a Saturday matinee. When we got back, she had put together three lamps for the living room that Santa had brought for me.

The front of the living room was too dark, so I couldn’t read the spines of my CDs. The last time my friends visited for a hearts game, the room was too dark for them, so this was a really important addition.

That she did it all by herself was quite remarkable. She had wanted to do this earlier, but her parents were always around, so she had to wait until we went to the movies.

Better seating

She also brought an office chair upstairs and put it together. I had one that broke down. Then, I used a stationary chair, which was more comfortable but less easy to get in and out of—the office chair swivels. Additionally, the new chair makes it much easier to clean the room. The hardest task was taking the old chair to the attic; I was not strong enough to do it myself.

During the cleaning – I picked up, and she removed stuff – we also had a wonderful conversation about life. We talked about the friends she had when she was younger. She still has some of them, and others have faded away, but she keeps track of many.  We talked about our friend Bonnie, who she believes is the first significant person in her life to die. She doesn’t really remember my mother; the last time she saw her was when the daughter was five. Also, we discussed other relationships each of us have had.

We talked about the time we deconstructed the rotting shed in the backyard, one of the great joys I had working with her. It was a wonderful evening.

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