Arthur@AmeriNZ Archives - Page 8 of 47

October rambling: direct the whirlwind

Washington can’t be trusted

expiration_date_high_score — This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License.

Inside the most brutal dictatorship you’ve never heard of

America’s Forgotten Mass Lynching: When 237 People Were Murdered in Arkansas

Why Are Poor Countries Poor?

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Compounding Pharmacies

Before He Animated For Disney, Willie Ito Sketched Cartoons In An Internment Camp

Diversity, inequality and prejudice

John Fugelsang: the enemies of Christianity

Edison and Tesla’s cutthroat ‘Current War’ ushered in the electric age

The amazing feat of extreme auto engineering by Frenchman Emile Leray allowed him to escape being stranded in a Moroccan desert in 1993

Annie Lennox: Maverick sat down with MSNBC’s Ari Melber at MASS MoCA

Are Expired Pregnancy Tests Accurate?

Tim Urban: Inside the mind of a master procrastinator

‘Jeopardy!’ host Alex Trebek may leave the show over cancer battle

You’re welcome, Arthur

Robert Forster, Oscar-Nominated ‘Jackie Brown’ Actor, Dead at 78

Rip Taylor, Flamboyant Comic and Host of ‘The $1.98 Beauty Show,’ Dies at 84

Facebook cloning scam; you were not hacked

Tigger – PRONUNCIATION: TIG-uhr
MEANING: noun: Someone filled with energy, cheerfulness, and optimism.
ETYMOLOGY: After Tigger, a tiger in A.A. Milne’s The House at Pooh Corner (1928). Earliest documented use: 1981.

Now I Know: The Kind of Amazing Thing That Happens When You Lose $13 and How Baseball Closed Its Tiny Loophole and When Speeding Won’t Get You There Any Faster and What Canada Has In Common With Romulans and How a Cute Cartoon Created a Catastrophe of Raccoons

Serena Versus the Drones

GHWB

The family trekked to Kennebunk and Kennebunkport ME the first weekend in October 2019. We got to pass through four states – NY, MA, NH, ME – in less than five hours. Twice in three days.

We went to a nice little museum, with a historical house. When it was in danger of closing in 2011, President George H.W. Bush offered to have some of his memorabilia be collected in one large room of the museum. This saved the day. I wasn’t a huge fan of the Bushes, but this was a kind and decent offer.

djt

Everything He’s an Expert In, According to Him

Mark Evanier has decided that until djt leaves office — and maybe even after — he “will feature one story each day about what he’s doing to The World, America, The Rule of Law, The Dignity of the Executive Branch and himself. He, of course, is concerned only with the last of these.”

His capitulation to Erdogan destroys U.S. credibility; by abandoning America’s Kurdish partners in Syria, the White House has sent a message to allies everywhere that Washington can’t be trusted. It’s just him being himself.

More Answers to Impeachment Objections

Alexander Hamilton warned that a man “unprincipled in private life desperate in his fortune, bold in his temper, possessed of considerable talents… despotic in his ordinary demeanour — known to have scoffed in private at the principles of liberty” might “throw things into confusion that he may ‘ride the storm and direct the whirlwind.'” from “Founders foresaw Trump nightmare,” USA Today.com, October 7, 2019

Keeping Refugees Out Makes the United States Less Safe

MUSIC

Ginger Baker: A Jazz Drummer With a Rock Reputation

Viviane by Ernest Chausson

Beethoven: Symphony No.9 in D Minor, Op.125 – “Choral” – 4. Presto – Allegro assai · Jessye Norman · Reinhild Runkel · Robert Schunk · Hans Sotin · Chicago Symphony Chorus · Chicago Symphony Orchestra · Sir Georg Solti

Here, There And Everywhere – MonaLisa Twins

Hits from the Andrews Sisters’ songbook – Voctave

Jokerman – John Cruz

Coverville: 1280: Abbey Road 50th Anniversary Album Cover and 1281: Lindsey Buckingham Cover Story

Everybody’s Everything – Steve Winwood and Sheila E., Orianthi, honoring Carlos Santana at the Kennedy Center Honors

Once Upon a Time from The Princess Bride

Pitchfork: The 200 best songs of the 2010s; I own maybe a half dozen of them, and recognize perhaps that many more

The Unsolved Case of the Most Mysterious Song on the Internet

A post for Arthur@AmeriNZ

R.I.P., Nigel King

arthur and Nigel — Arthur and Nigel – pic stolen from Arthur’s Facebook page. I hope he doesn’t mind.

“The largely artificial Internet life is all too often detached from real life, and we lose sight of the real-life humans we’re interacting with. Yet the Internet can also deliver connections we’d never have had otherwise.”

That was something Arthur@AmeriNZ wrote about me upon the passing of my mother in 2011. I’ve almost certainly have mentioned him more than any other person on this blog. I catch his typos and he catches mine; we’re both mortified.

In his blog, you read how the kid from Chicago traveled all the way to New Zealand in the mid-1990s and found love with Nigel. I think I get along with Arthur so well because he marks all of those anniversaries: when he came to Kiwiland, when he and Nigel had their civil union (because that was all that was allowed at the time), and when they were married, among many others.

It was only Friday, September 13 when Arthur wrote that Nigel had been in hospital since the previous Monday, originally for an infection. The doctors had discovered that Nigel had late-stage liver cancer. At the very best, he would have around two years.

Of course, Arthur was angry that they were to be cheated out of growing old together. Still, I thought they would have some time to be together for a little while more, something they had worked toward for a quarter of a century.

Less than a week later, Arthur wrote on Facebook. “Nigel left us around 6:59 this morning. I am destroyed.” And I am overwhelmed with a sense of loss for Arthur, who I care for deeply. I can’t explain how you can develop a relationship with someone you’ve never met in person, but there it is.

The funeral of Nigel King will be Monday 1:30 pm, Auckland time, which is 16 hours ahead of New York time. In lieu of flowers, the family would appreciate donations to the Anxiety New Zealand Trust.

To paraphrase Arthur, “I hope that the support and aroha Arthur is receiving from around the world helps comfort him in this sad time.”

Sept. rambling: “I want you to panic”

Dustbury on Kim Kashkashian

1973 male entertainers — 1973 benefit. Larry Karaszewski tweet: “We Are The World”. From HERE

Don’t Use These Free-Speech Arguments Ever Again

Follow-up to “How Should We Rewrite the Second Amendment?”

The spy in your wallet: Credit cards have a privacy problem

The Focus on 1619 as the Beginning of Slavery in the U.S. Damages Our Understanding of American History

The White Power Movement From Reagan to Trump

Pediatricians reveal that racism can negatively affect children’s health

#MeToo-era study says Women facing ‘massive increase in hostility’ in workplace

Government Cannot Select the Right Immigrants

On climate change, “I want you to panic”

Alaska’s Sea Ice Completely Melted for First Time in Recorded History

The legacy of ‘boys will be boys’ on American life

Trump is Abnormal, It’s His Superpower

Trump’s Scottish resort: Air Force crew made an odd stop on a routine trip

Dumber than a box of markers

Unions make us strong

I learn something from criticism because when it comes from sources you respect you always examine it and learn. – Maurice Strong

How Do You Decide What’s Right and Wrong?

In defense of reading the same book over and over again

The language rules we know – but don’t know we know

AP Stylebook Changes Hyphen Guidance, Ushering In Total Chaos

Outraged Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Mayor bans comic due to kiss; kiss plastered over international media. STORY

It’s OK to Cry

Appreciation: Valerie Harper and the timeless cool of Rhoda Morgenstern

Howie Morris would have been 100

‘Dustbury’ blogging pioneer Charles Hill completes final tour

Ken Levine: Meet Corporal Klinger – Jamie Farr

Mark Evanier: 100 things I learned about the comic book industry

Welcome to the World of Competitive Wiffle Ball

The new old people

Dustbury: Amusement is where you find it

How to Increase Your Laptop Battery Life

Now I Know: New York City’s Late Pass and The Man Who Beat the Scratch Lottery and The Crime-Busting Pizza Topping and Let There Be Lighght and The Man Who Beat the Scratch Lottery and The Russian Plot to Replicate the Moon and How Not To Use a Very Fast Internet Hookup

The Perfection of the Paper Clip

NOT ME: In Kibler, Police Chief Roger Green rescued an elderly woman from her flooded home about 4:30 a.m. Saturday

MUSIC

Sleep by Eric Whitacre – VOCES8

Dustbury: Several short works by György Kurtág, performed by Kim Kashkashian

Coverville: 1276: The Elvis Costello Cover Story and 1277: Cover Stories for Barry White and The Stranglers

It’s Quiet Uptown – Kelly Clarkson

2011 Tony Awards, hosted by Neil Patrick Harris. show close with a rap number summarizing the evening, written by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Tommy Kail

How Hamilton Works: 10 Reasons 10 Duel Commandments Is Amazing

Michael Kamen’s score for Highlander

Something – The Beatles: Take 39 /Instrumental/Strings Only and 2019 Mix

K-Chuck Radio: Taylor Swift’s not so new idea

Dustbury: An emo version of Baby Shark

Jazz Is a Music of Perseverance Against Racism and Capitalism

The I states: IA, IL, IN, oh, and ID

The Second City is now third

I map — Created / Published: New York, Published by G. Woolworth Colton; agent, Chicago, Rufus Blanchard, 1858. From the Library of Congress.

An interesting thing to me: of the four of them, three of the I states, Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa, are in a line, east to west. I had been to NONE of them in the 20th century. OK, I rode a train through Indiana in 1998, and I had been to Chicago, Illinois’ O’Hare airport a few times. But I never counted those.

Then in 2008, I made it to Chicago, for real, which I wrote about HERE. That was state #30 I visited. And in 2019, I made it to West Lafayette, IN, making the tally 31. At this rate, I’ll have visited every state by the year 2228.

ID Idaho Abbreviation is first two letters The usual traditional shorter version was Ida. My great aunt’s sister was named Ida. Capital and largest city: Boise. It’s in two time zones, Mountain (primarily) and Pacific.
That B-52’s song Private Idaho is irrationally stuck in my head.

IL Illinois Abbreviation is first two letters, traditional version is Ill., which is kind of sick.
Capital: Springfield, home of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library.
Largest city: Chicago, which used to be referred to as Second City – thus SCTV – because it was the second-largest city in the US, but now it’s third, after New York City and Los Angeles.
Arthur pointed out recently that this season was the centennial of the Red Summer, a painful picture of America’s racist past.
Here’s Chicago by Frank Sinatra.

IN Indiana Abbreviation is the first two letters, traditionally Ind.
Capital and largest city: Indianapolis.
Here’s a Wikipedia factoid: “As of 2013 Indiana has produced more National Basketball Association (NBA) players per capita than any other state. Muncie has produced the most per capita of any American city, with two other Indiana cities in the top ten… The 1986 film Hoosiers” – which is very good – “is inspired by the story of the 1954 Indiana state champions Milan High School.”
Vice-President, and former Indiana governor Mike Pence has been feuding with South Bend, IN mayor, and Democratic Presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg (pronounced like it’s spelled).
Strange song on a Motown label: Indiana Wants Me – R. Dean Taylor

IA Iowa First and last letters in the abbreviation, which is the traditional abbreviation, if people bothered to shorten it at all.
Capital and largest city: Des Moines.
The state gets outsized attention because it holds the first presidential caucus in the country, even before the first primary, which is in New Hampshire. Gatherings of voters select delegates to the state conventions.
The Iowa State Fair claims to be the inspiration for a novel and three movies. It is home to the world-famous Butter Cow, weighing about 600 pounds and standing 5.5 feet tall.
Here are a bunch of songs about the Hawkeye State.

For ABC Wednesday

August rambling: extreme inequality

this is not a drill — Stolen from HERE and HERE

Extreme Inequality Is Driving Anxiety and Depression in the US

Is It Obvious Yet that Tariffs Injure Americans?

#TrumpRecession Trends as he is blamed for rising fears of another economic meltdown

E Pluribus Unum? The Fight Over Identity Politics

A Life of Incalculable Harm: David Koch (1940-2019)

The Amazon isn’t “Burning” – It’s Being Burned

Man cuffed by police, forced out of his own home in his underwear after ‘sleeping while black’

CNN interview with Randy Rainbow

The Simpsons: Fleeing the Squad in ‘West Side Story’ Parody

The Daily Show: Donsplaining

The US is about to withdraw from the United Nations’ Universal Postal Union (UPU) – why?

Art Spiegelman: golden age superheroes were shaped by the rise of fascism

Secrets and Lies in the School Cafeteria; A tale of missing money, heated lunchroom arguments, and flaxseed pizza crusts

I Shared My Phone Number. I Learned I Shouldn’t Have. “Our personal tech columnist asked security researchers what they could find out about him from just his cellphone number. Quite a lot, it turns out.”

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov

Going against the decluttering craze: THE BOOK HOARDERS WHO DEFY MARIE KONDO

There Is No Reason to Cross the U.S. by Train. But I Did It Anyway. I would absolutely do this.

Smoke Detector Placement: Your Guide to Installing Carbon Monoxide and Fire Alarms

Peter Fonda, the ‘Easy Rider’ star and counterculture icon, dies at 79

The acclaimed animator who created Roger Rabbit dies. Richard Williams, 86, who worked on hit films such as The Pink Panther, won three Oscars and three Baftas

Binghamton, NY Broadcasting legend Bill Parker has passed away at the age of 91. I was on his show… in 1958.

John Green: What to Love and How

Anderson Cooper interviewing Stephen Colbert became largely about dealing with grief

Where would Las Vegas be without the fruit machine, the invention of car mechanic Charles Fey?

Norwich Cathedral helter-skelter ‘is a mistake’

Monty Python tease re: the writing and filming of Life of Brian

Commercials that travel well

6 Similarities Between Star Wars And Zen Buddhism

The New Prospectors: Every year, members of the Gold Prospectors Association of America pack up their RVs in search of adventure, friendship, and a bucketful of pay dirt

Now I know: Why Capital Letters are Called “Upper Case” and 1968: A Space, and Financial Services, Odyssey and The Easter Egg Hunt That Caught a Bad Egg and What Are All Those Dots On My Car’s Windshield? and Why We Pour Milk on our Cereal and When Pants Were a Ticket to Jail

Never could figure out these damn things

Record Review- Roger Green

MUSIC

Starman – MonaLisa Twins

16 Revelations About Fiddler on the Roof

Love Letters – Alicia Beale

Piano Concerto No. 1 in E-flat major by Alma Deutscher

Praying For Time / The Rain Song [George Michael & Led Zeppelin mashup] – Puddles Pity Party

Symphonic Dances from West Side Story by Leonard Bernstein

K-Chuck Radio: Paul McCartney’s not quite dead yet and In honor of Kris’ birthday

Pink Panther theme – all about the bass

What About Us [Pink Cover] – One Voice Children’s Choir

Who’s Sorry Now? – Gloria DeHaven

Coverville: 1274: This Day in Covers: August 14, 1984 and 1275: Cover Stories for Thin Lizzy, Jamie Cullum and KISS

Gloria – Los Doltons

All My Happiness Is Gone – David Berman, RIP